I would like to pretend that this never happened...

Rating: 1/10 (23 December 2003)

When I was about 7 or 8 my Mum took my brother and I to see Return of the Jedi. This was my introduction to the world of Star Wars and it blew my little mind. I'll never forget some of the most memorable characters ever put to celluloid.
When Phantom came I wanted to see it so bad...My friends and I made it a 'get wasted on noxious chemicals and buzz out' kind of a night. What we did not know is that the film would be so well...boring, lame and uninteresting. The film audience at a midnight showing can be very telling of a films greatness. In this case, remember when Jar-Jar was stumbling around in the final battle. NO ONE LAUGHED!!! Remember when Anakin was on auto pilot and ended up accidently flying into the battle in outer space. NO ONE LAUGHED!!!
Why does this film suck? Well the acting is universally awful. Liam Neeson comes off best. Mcgregor is extremely camp, which makes me wonder if he was taking the mickey out of the whole thing. Jake Lloyd is awful! Just awful! Wasn't 'Jingle all the way' a film that taught everyone that Jake Lloyd should not be allowed to do movies? He is like an even less talented Macaulay Culkin. The best example of bad acting from Lloyd is when he has to say goodbye to his Mother. Now if that actually took place the kid would be torn apart inside and would be a mess of claws and tears. Lloyd plays it like he has to go to summer camp for the first time and its a bit of a bummer. Not that he is being separated from HIS ONLY FAMILY for what will be a very long period of time. The acting is JUST SO BAD and I suspect it is because Lucas can't direct actors. Faster, more intense are probably not the best directions that you can give to your performers.
For anyone who is interested I suggest you read Peter Biskino's 'Easy Riders, Raging Bulls.'In this book Biskino writes that Lucas always had an ambivalent attitude towards Star wars. It made him but also defined him. As a director he would be as typecast as Mark Hamil was as Luke Skywalker. It also says that Lucas would never make anymore Star War's films for this reason. This is where I think the film goes wrong. The films are about money and showing off what digital special effects can do. This series fails because the script is terrible but the special effects are incredible. Special effects do not make a movie. There is something sadly ironic about the fact that this has happened to this series. There were so many bad Star Wars clone movies, like Battlestar Galatica. Star Wars always had the leading edge on special effects, story and characters. This all falls to pieces here. To all you movie directors out there. Well written characters and decent acting make a movie, not effects.
There are some other people who have commented that the film is good because it has some great looking worlds. For example, the underwater city that features at the beginning of the film. Or the chariot-speedster race that is obviously a wink to Ben-Hur. These things just make the movie look like a god-damn video game and do not add anything at all to the movie. To me these things are like Guy 'one trick' Ritchie. It is just visual showing off for no particular reason. It certainly does not do anything for the weak and ill conceived story.
One of the worst parts of the films to me is when Anakins mother says that he was immacutely conceived. This of course has religious connotations. Anakin as the 'one.' GROAN!!! C'mon this is just lazy writing and an easy way of getting rid of any Father figure.
Because of the business factor Lucas seems worried about his audience. he certainly does not want to get too dark. But if you think back to the original trilogy there are dark moments in all three films. Therefore a minimum of Darth Maul is seen on screen, which is a shame because he is the most interesting character. But if he started speaking, maybe we would have hated him to. Well at least N'sync are nowhere to be seen.
There is also the racial nightmare inherent in the film. What was Lucas thinking? The trade federation guys accent seem to be suspiciously Asian of some kind. Of course thet would mean they are greedy and insidiously evil. Watto, his penchant for profit and his big nose, is this anti-semitism? Jar Jar, more racial stereotyping? I mean was there someone there saying, 'hey George! That's a bit dodgy!'
Its all just another nail in the coffin for the series. Lucas has now proved what I have always thought. He is no Kubrick or Renoir, he is a special effects guy. When Star Wars originally came out critics stated that the film was infantilizing the audience. What the hell is this doing? This is the little rascals in space with all the dodgy 1950's political incorrectness.
Lord of the Rings, the Matrix films and the Star Wars prequels. These films seem to have dominated the box office these last few years. But it is Lord of the Rings, which is the only one where I care to see how it ends. The other two series I could not care less about the characters. To me that is very telling of the quality of the film. Even though this is a Star Wars film, I give it a 1 limping stormtrooper running away from 10 angry Tuscan Raiders. Avoid, unless you are a huge fan.