Good enough, far from spectacular

Rating: 4/10 (23 May 1999)

As critics have said, this movie was huge on SFX, and short on soul and emotion. The SFX were beyond imagination, especially the amazing podrace, all 4 final battles (most notably the Gungan/droid battle), the Gungan underwater city, and the Bongo ride through the core of Naboo. However, there was very little character development, and almost no pure emotion. Jar Jar wasn't as annoying as everyone says, and his comic relief was weak, yet enjoyable, because it held true to the original atmosphere of A New Hope, which is humor and entertainment. Absolute useless appearances from Jabba the Hut, C-3PO, the Tusken Raiders, the Jawas, and R2-D2(who at least had productive purpose), only used to sell more toys. Portman and McGregor were alright, Lloyd was pretty annoying (glad he won't be in Episode 2), and Neeson was lacking. The humor and wit that Han Solo supplied is totally void in this, almost taking out all of the fun. Darth Maul, who did kick complete ass, only had two lines, and was in about 4 scenes; his Infiltrator, with the ability to cloak, wasn't even used. On the highest note I can give, this movie leaves a lot of questions in our minds about what happens to the main characters and the others in the next two episodes, even though we KNOW that only 4 people make it to the 4-6 episodes(Yoda, Obi-Wan, Anakin, Palpatine). We know what happens to them in the end, and we know how they get there. The foreshadowing is abundant. However, the exact process has yet to be seen, and a few questions left unanswered. This tells me that the only purpose of "Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace" is to act as a sort of prologue to the 5 that follow it. Great things lie ahead for the characters of Anakin, Obi-Wan and Amidala in their development. I can promise that Episode 2 and 3 will be absolute triumphs of cinema history.