This movie? Matinee all the way. Or the dollar theatre.

Rating: 4/10 (13 May 1999)

Ghost of a Film
This movie? Matinee all the way. Or the dollar theatre.
MY TWO CENTS REVIEW
I'm sorry, but the movie was weak. I forced myself to watch it with fresh, untainted eyes. The plot was confusing and hard to follow, the characters were poorly developed, and the humor was forced and truly, truly unfunny.
The Script
Weak. Bad plotting and dialogue . The characters are hopping from planet to planet seemingly willy-nilly and the side trip to Tatooine, aside from the need to get Anakin into the story somehow, was long (although, thank GOD for the Pod Race!). There were some major holes and unexplained things in the film (the biggest being, if Tatooine is "Outer Rim," too far out to be policed concerning the Republic's anti-slavery policies, then why is it on the way between Naboo and Coruscant (at the center of the system?)).
I had basic issues: Why would this character do this? What's the motivation? Who's the villain? Darth Maul? The Emperor? Palpatine? The Japanese Aliens? Who's the hero? Qui-Jonn? Anakin? Queen Amidala? The writing, the backbone of any movie, and the hallmark of any SW movie, was lacking in the extreme in some very basic things that even I-by no means a good fiction writer-could spot a mile away.
The Characterization
No one was well developed at all. Qui-Gonn and Obi-Wan are the heroes, but they hardly do anything until the lightsaber duel at the end. Anakin is cute, but all of his achievements are pre-ordained; of course he has to survive: he's not even childbearing age yet. And it's hard to root for this cute kid when you know that in 30 or so years, he'll be crushing some guys windpipe with his mind.
Probably the worst mistake was the sparse use of Darth Maul! From what I understand, the actor, Ray Park does all of the training for the lightsaber fight scenes, and it showed in that sequence at the end. It will take your breath away. Whereas the Vader/Skywalker fights were power versus agility, these were ballets of death with all of the backflips and feints that accompany such a deadly dance. It was beautiful to watch.
Then we have the creatures.
The damned creatures.
Far, far too much attention is paid to them. You can feel the joy and wonder the filmmakers had in creating these things because they are on screen TOO DAMN LONG. Too bad that joy and wonder wasn't infused into the script.
In a way, I understand: hundreds of FX shots, you need to focus on them since you're spending all of that money, right? Well, all it did was steal character development time from everyone else and just kick you out of the story even further: little hat droids hopping around, the droid army slowly unfolding from its rack, Watto doing his "Greek merchant" think with Qui-Gonn, the Japanese Aliens speaking without moving their lips. And Jar-Jar.
Damned Jar-Jar.
My hatred of this character knows no bounds. It's as if someone said "Hey, the guys computer animated, who cares what he says?! Whooooo!"). Chewbacca, who you couldn't understand, was funnier than this floppy-eared freak. I understand that there has to be a "toy-ready" character for the film, but, man, this thing was a-friggin'-'nnoying! I won't rant anymore, but God in Heaven, he was painful to watch.
In all, the creatures were distracting. As opposed to just treating them like ordinary characters, the camera stays on them for far, far too long, and for no reason other than to show off the technical wizardry. If that's why people came to see a movie, though, Godzilla would have made more money.
The Acting
All-in-all pretty solid. Some friends of mine didn't like Jake Lloyd, but I thought the kid did OK; his lines were poorly written, but what could he do about that? Ray Park was friggin' great and was onscreen for far too little a time. Neeson.come on.of course he was great. Ewan MacGregor was good, and could have been better if he hadn't been relegated to a "Robin, watch the Batmobile" role for a lot of the movie. Natalie Portman was FANTASTIC. I was very, very impressed with her performance. Samuel Jackson is in the film far, far too briefly, but he does fine as one of the Jedi Council patriarchs.
Acting solid for the most part, even in the smaller characters like Anakin's Mom and the Queen's Bodyguard. Writing brings it down.
The Effects/Art Direction
Stellar. Amazing. Awesome. Completely computer generated creatures built from scratch. Alien vistas unlike anything you've ver seen. Coruscant's night side is a spiderweb of mile-high skyscrapers. Visually, this film was amazing and the effects and computer-genned characters were seamless. I will watch it again (on video) to marvel at the look of the film
Conclusion
As a setup for the fall of Anakin, this movie serves its purpose. It introduces the main players that will accompany the fall of this doomed figure over the next six years and executes some amazing special effects, easily the best I've ever seen.
The story, though, is in dire need of a critical edit, as was the film itself. Characters needed fleshing out, exposition needed toning down, pace needed speeding up in a lot of places, dialogue retooled, focus acquired, and the concept beefed up (starting out any movie with talk of tariffs and blockades gets the viewer into "news at 11 mode" and eyes get glassy). My prediction: this film will be a blockbuster, but it will barely break the top 10 grossing movies of all time (if it reaches it at all). It WILL make the Top 20, but I can't imagine that enough SW fans are devout enough to want to see such a poor addition to the series a second or third time.
All that said, I can't wait for the next prequel. It's gotta be an improvement.