Not a Beatle reunion, but no Wham reunion, either

Rating: 6/10 (12 December 2003)

Okay, full disclosure here. I am old enough to have been alive when the first Star Wars film came out (I saw it in 1977 at age 11) and thus likely to be one of those fogies old enough to hold a grudge against a film that isn't up to snuff in my view for what the saga represents. Except I think this film was better than either the Star Wars film that came before ("Revenge Of The Jedi") or after ("Attack Of The Clones.") More than that, "Phantom Menace" is good. Not great, but good.
Considering this is where the whole "Star Wars" story is supposed to take off, it could be worse. I like the opening act, which whips by in just five minutes. Jedi Knights Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan MacGregor) start out bored emissaries and wind up energized fugitives. Their arrival and subsequent escape from the blockade vessel is not a masterpiece, but it is exciting and propels interest in the film which it manages to sustain for the first hour or so. It's cool how the Jedi dispatch their robot attackers so that we see their decapitated stumps still glowing from the lightsaber cuts, and how the battle droids clatter so convincingly into metal heaps on the floor.
We never get much more than this, however. The two Jedi meet a "local," one Jar-Jar Binks, who offers some comedy to the proceedings. He's never quite funny, but given the otherwise severe tone of this picture, his goofiness is welcome to me. A lot of people cry about Jar-Jar being where the kids took over the franchise. Actually, the kids began running the franchise in 1977, but that was when my generation were the kids and the 40-year-olds didn't much care about this sci-fi claptrap. Frankly, the atmosphere begins getting uneasily infantile not with Jar-Jar but with his Gungan cohorts, who are as cartoony as Jar-Jar but much harder to take as they become the central focus of the plot, rather than just the goofy sideline spectator Jar-Jar is. Anyway, Jar-Jar's Buster Keaton hi-jinks during the final battle is one of the most entertaining parts of the film.
John Williams throws in some solid music, chorales this time, unexpected but nice and in keeping with the best of his previous efforts. At least one `Star Wars' vet was still energized. George Lucas however seems to lose interest halfway through the film, after the podrace, probably the only part of this film anyone will be talking about in five years. There again, you have a little boy winning, and a sense of Lucas plotting-though-demographics. But Anakin is supposed to be a special little boy, and we are told the podrace is his element. More annoying is his role at the controls of a starfighter at the final resolution, saying a lot of corny lines like `Hold on, Artoo' as presumably practiced fighter pilots and expertly crafted droids lose all cohesion and cunning around him. Anakin's antics here feel like a form of heavy-duty blandishment to `Phantom Menace's' core consumer audience, more ingratiating than any the `Star Wars' series offered before. At least the older films pretended to have an adult focus.
But forgive me. It's hard to get too angry at a movie that asks you to pay close attention to Natalie Portman and Keira Knightley and notice which is which. Actually, the most beautiful female in this movie is probably Pernilla August, who delivers a note-perfect characterization of Anakin's mother. What a face, and what eyes. August makes you feel the overwhelming nature of material devotion and envy the recipient. The acting in this film is otherwise never great, but not bad, either. Liam is solid in the lead role of Qui-Gon, while Jake Lloyd is an alright mini-Darth, looking alternately sharp and innocent. I like one scene where he explains the price of a slave's disobedience is that "They BLOW you up," slamming the table for emphasis. You can feel Imperial generals of the future fingering their collars during that scene.
So it's not `Star Wars.' It's not `Empire Strikes Back.' It's not even a real film in the sense you have to know the earlier films, if not actually watched them, to be properly cognizant of what is going on here. But `Phantom' is good entertainment, albeit for a less discriminating age than the one that gave this oeuvre life.