Phantom Cop Out

Rating: 1/10 (12 May 2005)

This tawdry, awful, boring piece of rubbish makes me think that George Lucas knew the mere mention of the name 'Star Wars' would attract an audience, so why bust his arse making it? Why does it suck? Let me count the ways: 1. Jar Jar Binks. Really enough said right there. Lucas was so full of himself promoting a 'fully digital' character, he didn't bother making sure it was a 'good' character. It wasn't. 2. The annoying little kid who played Darth Vader. I'm sorry, but kid or not, little Darth would not be saying 'Yippee' when flying about. Also, Lucas missed a great moment to show how bad little Darth could become in the chariot race (let's face it, it's lifted straight from Ben Hur). He could have had Darth flinch, or gesture involuntarily and push the other racers away from him (or something similar) without realising what he had done. That would have been great. 3. Taking a good actor like Natalie Portman and making her speak in a dull monotone throughout the film. That'll put the audience to sleep. 4. Using weak, comedy relief robots for the bad guys. Well we can't have little Darth shooting real people can we? 5. Introducing this ridiculous concept of the (whatever they are) in the blood which creates the force. When Alec Guiness explained the force in the original, he made it sound great. Liam Neeson (not his fault) made it sound like a blood disease.
There is more, but these are bad enough.