flashy, but empty shell

Rating: 2/10 (25 May 1999)

Call me a sucker, but I loved the original Star Wars movies, in spite of some of their obvious hokiness. In this installment, special effects have made a stunning leap forward since the first movie, but -- and I know this is hard to believe -- the age of the target audience and the quality of the script have taken an equal step back.
"The Phantom Menace" seems squarely aimed at the video-game playing 8-year and under crowd -- can you spot the scenes that will be made into games? (And that appear to only be there for that very purpose?) Literally every scene with young Anakin in it was painful to watch, so clumsy was the writing -- even the actors (actors?) seemed embarrassed at times. Did the marketing department insist that a young boy be included as a marketable hero, for the merchandise customers to identify with?
What's there to like? The light saber fights, and the special effects; all extremely well done. If some of the other scenes (alluded to above) had ended up on the cutting-room floor, the movie wouldn't have been any more devoid of plot and in fact, I'd have enjoyed it a lot more overall.
In summary: I loved the glitz, but not near enough to make up for the embarrassingly bad, toy-marketing-driven script. A good friend called the movie "The Phantom Plotline". Well said. The merchandise is real enough, though.