Something of a disappointment...

Rating: Null/10 (6 July 1999)

First of all, I will say that I am not a fanatical Star Wars fan, but I do enjoy the Star Wars films quite a lot (I have seen each of the original films a number of times). I saw it in its first week of release though, about five days after it began.
I had hoped that my expectations had been lowered a little by the reviews I had heard/read, but frankly they hadn't been lowered enough, I still came out with an empty feeling like I had just lost $10.
To be fair, I have to speak highly of a number of parts. The visuals were breathtaking - the lush, green forests of Naboo, the desolate wastelands of Tatooine, the massive city-planet of Coruscant, they all looked fantastic. I only wish I had been given longer to take them in. The pod race was great also.
The lightsaber fights were marvellous, both Jedis were very efficient at dicing droids (Darth Maul proved more of a handful though, but I shall come back to this).
The computer generated elements, in my eyes, functioned for the most part seamlessly. The droid vs Gungan battle was great, the destroyer droids were cool too. I had little problem with the acting, I thought both Jedi did a fine job (although some of their lines were somewhat empty), I didn't think Anakin was portrayed that badly, I thought Natalie Portman did a good job portraying Amidala (although some of the moments containing Anakin and her as Padme were somewhat painful).
The storyline was also fairly well written in general, especially with a knowledge of the future. I don't mean Anakin becoming Darth Vader, either. I was referring to the political manipulations of Palpatine, brilliantly playing both sides to rise in power. Very clever...
So, the storyline, action, visuals and acting were all right... what went wrong? I must admit that if I had watched this without preconceptions, I may not have been so critical, but there are several things I have difficulty getting past.
Surprisingly, one of them isn't Jar Jar. I didn't loathe him as much as many, just accepted that he was in the film, and concentrated on trying to figure out what the hell he was saying rather than how annoying he was.
However, here were a few of the letdowns.
1. Almost no Darth Maul or Mace Windu - Samuel L. Jackson's role was very token, he was hardly in it at all, which was a pity. The same can almost be said of Darth Maul. I thought he was outstanding, a great personification of the dark side when he was on screen, but he hardly ever was. A great opportunity squandered if you ask me. And his death was laughable. He had just beaten down two Jedi by himself, killed one, and then gets beaten by probably the oldest Jedi trick in the book - if he had stopped his prancing around and finished the job, his severed torso wouldn't have been plummeting down that deep chasm (who builds these spacestations anyway? Obviously they had no Occupational Safety and Health laws a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away).
2. The immaculate conception concept - oh please, how lame was that. It was just dropped on the audience, then the movie zips to the next scene. If you were supposed to go 'oooh, he's the chosen one since that happened' then that should been alluded to earlier. As it was, it was hardly mentioned anyway.
3. The physical description of the force - laughable. What a sad interpretation of what was a cool idea. Breaking it down to that sort of level was pointless, it was cooler before.
4. Anakin getting into a ship he has never even seen before and flying up into the space where he gets involved in a very important battle, blows up a important ship by himself that all the proper pilots were getting slaughtered by, hence saving the day - bad. Movies aren't always about being plausible, but that was simply stretching it, regardless of how much of the force he had in him.
5. The Viceroy and his Federation lackeys - what a pack of lame characters those guys were. It was like watching a bad comedy listening to them talking to each other. Seeing them getting sliced, diced or beaten up would have been a treat (they were worse than Jar Jar)
6. Parts of the script - some of it was lacking, making the jobs of the actors very difficult. Example being the opening scene - Ewan McGregor says 'I have a bad feeling about this...' Oooooh... nice one.
Anyway, enough spiel. Basically, it was a solid film with enough annoying flaws to ensure it won't be held as a classic.