Typical Hollywood film focusing on special effects and action scenes while ignoring the heart of the story and neither developing the dialogue or the characters well

Rating: Null/10 (15 May 1999)

Unlike the other three films in the Star Wars saga, this film opened with a complex and wordy explanation of events taking place. It seemed that Lucas was not only able to include these events in the film but that the beginning of the saga needed an explanation of how it began. I was not let down by the special effects of the film as Lucas is a master of them but that is not why I went to see it and why the Star Wars saga is such a great story. The acting was good, but the actors did not have much to draw upon. Most of the characters were shallow and the dialogue was poorly written. The most annoying character, Jar-jar, an unintelligible bumbling clumsy creature created for the little kids to laugh each time he comes on screen. An example of the simplistic script is one scene when a big fish eats another fish monster attacking the ship, and Liam Neeson's character says "There's always a bigger fish," then 30 seconds later another fish monster attacks their ship and is again eaten by a bigger fish. The leaders of the Trade Federation spoke with an overemphasized Oriental accent verging on a caricature. One of the things that made the original trilogy great was the mythological and religious symbolism, however in Phantom Menace, its single appearance is overdone with the Immaculate Conception of Anakin Skywalker. The Force was always a mystical and mysterious aspect, but in this film one's potential in the Force is verified by a simple blood test, stripping the Force of its wonder and mystery. There is also a scene in the Senate in which E.T. is alleged one of the Senators. This film gets so divided that you are simultaneously following five different action scenes, making this picture just another run-of-the-mill ordinary action flick. The only high points of the film are the special effects, the costumes, and the acting focusing specifically on the Queen, and Darth Maul (who is only in the film at best 15 minutes). True fans like myself will go see it and probably see it more than once because it is Star Wars, but it is in no sense a good film, and comes nowhere close to the Trilogy.