For your kids only...

Rating: 6/10 (9 January 2002)

OK, I really liked episodes 4 - 6, inspite of the fact that they are quite corny and have a lot of plot holes. This movie, although it doesn't differ TOO much from the previous three in terms of story (which is still full of holes) and it falls short of the other Star Wars movies in every other aspect. The casting is reasonable, I suppose, but the script really doesn't allow for much character interaction. Dialogues in this movie are silly or just downright inappropriate. For example, when the monster that chases the submarine carrying our heroes gets eaten by another monster, all Liam Neeson can say is "there's always a bigger fish". What nonsense ! Also, the first three movies didn't take themselves too seriously. To continue this tradition, George Lucas probably decided to include Jar-Jar Binks, who is without a doubt the most annoying character ever to appear in any movie. The result of this dubious choice is a movie filled with jokes that are probably funny to five year old kids. Most of the movie's action sequences also lack any kind of tension, probably because the main characters are put to series after series of highly dangerous events without one of them even getting scratched. The only memorable series are the pod-race and the last fight between Darth Maul and the Jedis. The special effects in this movie are great, but everything else seems to have been dumbed down in order to make the movie more accessible to kids, thus ensuring the sale of more action figures and other rubbish. It's not a total loss because there's still a bit of that "Star Wars Magic" in this movie, but overall "the Phantom Menace" is more of a two-hours commercial then a real movie *1/2 out of ****