The Prequel that Failed...

Rating: 2/10 (16 February 2016)

Poor Phantom Menace! People really hate this film. Over the years I've heard people complain about the dialogue, the story, the acting, well pretty much everything really, and I can agree with almost all of these complaints. The hype for this film back in 1999 was enormous and when the film finally released, well...
The whole idea of the prequel trilogy was to tell the story of Anakin Skywalker and how he went from a small boy on Tattooine to becoming Darth Vader. This whole premise sounds awesome and as a kid, I was really excited for this. I was always very interested in Darth Vader's backstory so getting a whole trilogy based around that was super exciting. When I saw the Phantom Menace, all my hopes were dashed...
When the evil Trade Federation organise a blockade around the peaceful planet of Naboo, jedi knights Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi are sent to confront the leaders of the federation, however the leader of the federation Nute Gunray is ordered to kill the jedi knights forcing them to flee down to the planet of Naboo where they must find and warn the queen who has already been captured by the federation...
So this is basically the plot for the entire film, and what doesn't help is the constant political discussions and the dull senate scenes. May I remind you that this film is aimed primarily at kids, what kid is gonna sit through this? I sure as hell didn't, I always avoided this film because I didn't want to sit through this political bullshit.
The underlying plot of the emperor trying to convince the queen to move for a vote of no-confidence on Chancellor Valorum so he can replace him and take emergency powers to do all his evil stuff behind the scenes and... I don't really know what's going on, this film does a lousy job in explaining the plot, which is a problem when you're setting the foundations for a whole new trilogy.
You just want the plot to end so we can get to some awesome action scenes, but no we have to mess around on Tattooine for 40 minutes first. One of the big problems I have with this film is how much time it spends on Tattooing doing absolutely nothing. We meet Anakin Skywalker, the main focus of the trilogy, on this planet, and he's a child-slave who... no actually that's it he's a child-slave, I have nothing else. This kid has no character whatsoever, he has a crush on Padme and he's good a building things, we have nothing else on this kid, and yet Qui-Gon spends the next half an hour obsessing over him, taking samples and discussing exactly what he is and what his skills mean, why?
When we finally leave Tattooine, Qui-Gon heads to the Jedi council to get Anakin approved for training, and the incredibly dull jedi council featuring an irritating CGI Yoda and a dull and incredibly flat Mace Windu, turn him down saying: 'he's too old', that's it! This council is absolute crap. They do nothing, they are constantly fretting about what this blockade could mean for the jedi and yet not one of them do a god damn thing! Seriously, get off your arses and do something!
The climax consists of an awesome lightsaber fight, a team of separatists shooting through a castle, an underwhelming space attack on the Gunray's control ship, and a ridiculous invasion from the pathetic Gunguns, Wow!
Anakin destroys the Gunray's control ship, the separatists confront Viceroy Gunray, and Darth Maul kills Qui-Gon before Obi-Wan kills Darth Maul. Obi-Wan decides to train Anakin, there's a big celebration, and the credits begin rolling!
The lightsaber fight may be the best thing about this film, but the scenes with Anakin destroying the control ship are just daft. It's not the premise as such, I think it's more Jake Lloyd's performance with his constant "Woah"s and "Wooo"s which get on my nerves so I can't take it seriously.
The film's acting is a major problem. I don't think it's the actors themselves as Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor are both brilliant actors, but I feel it's a combination of flat dialogue and an over- reliance on bluescreen and CGI, both of which look dreadful. The actors are usually talking to something they can't see which means there's no emotion in their performances because acting emotively to an empty space is quite difficult.
Also Lucas's script is full of flat lines and uninteresting dialogue, never at any point did I find myself thinking 'what an awesome line', instead I was usually thinking 'what the hell does that actually mean?'.
Another problem with this cast is the film never uses them. Liam Neeson just walks around delivering incredibly flat lines, Ewan McGregor spends most of his time in the background, Natalie Portman is just there and Samuel L. Jackson sits in a chair fretting about stuff. Boring!
I don't think it's really possible to review this film without talking about the infamous Jar Jar Binks, while I think he's visually impressive, it's the personality and the voice that get on my nerves. Maybe Lucas was trying to overcompensate for the endless political talk, but here we have the stereotypical, irritating cartoon character that's obviously trying too hard to appeal to kids.
So... The Phantom Menace is the dullest of the Star Wars films and my personal least favourite. Anything cool that happens is overshadowed by something dull. Even the awesome lightsaber battles don't redeem the disaster that is the Phantom Menace.
After this disaster, it took three years before we got the second part of the Prequel trilogy, Attack of the Clones, would it be as bad as the first, well, fans will have you believe so...