Flashy but flawed

Rating: 5/10 (1 June 1999)

Before I say anything else, the special effects are nothing short of spectacular. Besides them, however, the movie is sorely hurting in a number of areas. While I disagree with most critics' panning of Liam Neeson (I think his detachment is perfectly appropriate for a Jedi), George Lucan needs to hire a decent editor, Ewan McGregor is sadly underused, Jake Lloyd ranks about a 6 on the child-actor-annoyance scale, and I was ready to throttle Jar Jar Binks after about 2 minutes. Natalie Portman, however, was a very pleasant surprise, and Darth Maul kicked major heinie. The most, and by the time it was over with basically only, interesting thing about the movie was how it so blatantly set up the next two (I can't wait for Senator Palpatine to reveal himself as Darth Sidious and whack the whole Jedi Council). All that aside, it was great eye candy.