Ego Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Interest.

Rating: 6/10 (14 April 2006)

A small brained CGI fest that still managed to pull in 431 million dollars, The Phantom Menace is not without it's merits. What makes the original trilogy great is that aside from the ground breaking effects, there was a sufficient script and competent actors which came together to create a throwback to serials. There is the rub. The Phantom Menace was made with focus groups in mind to appeal to the largest groups of people. The utterly annoying Jar Jar is probably a hit with kids due to his accent and harmless nature while Liam Neeson, Ewan Mcgregor, and Natalie Portman are here to provide credibility. Only Neeson manages to be engaging as Portman doesn't call anything a walking carpet and Mcgregor doesn't do much of anything. The worst offense is the horrendous Yoda puppet that looks angry all the time. Jar Jar is a good representation of what is wrong with this movie; he is a clichÃ© with no character dimension that is flashy and empty. All of the creatures of CGI in this movie are duller than the extras filling the foreground and they aren't tangible. They are streamlined plastic ready to be packaged for the kids. The scenes that manage to entertain are the ones with real people. The Jedi fight scenes, especially the two on one battle with Darth Maul, the racing scene, and the scenes with the surprisingly steady Jake Lloyd are the highlights. If Lucas had only realized that the human factor was what made this series great, he wouldn't have made this artificial void that is the worst of the six Star Wars films.