It's a Star Wars movie, 'nuff said!

Rating: 9/10 (19 May 1999)

Going into The Phantom Menace last night I had ignored all the movie critics. The way I looked at it, I (among with millions of other people) didn't agree with them 20 years ago so what made me expect I was going to agree with them now.
And ya know what? I don't agree with them. Sure George Lucas is probably not going to win the Oscar for the screenplay, but this is an action movie. And Natalie Portman and Ewan MacGregor probably won't be putting any trophies on their mantles, but those are the realities of a movie without one main character.
Anyway, enough backlash at critics. I thought the movie was very well put together. I had heard it was Disney-like at times, and in a way it was. But then again, so are almost all of the Star Wars films (Ewoks, Jawas, etc.) Jar Jar Binks while serving no real purpose other than comic relief, wasn't as bad as I had heard. In fact, he kinda reminded me of C3PO.
The one thing I really liked was how some of the familiar characters were introduced (Jabba the Hutt, C3PO, R2-D2). While they weren't main players in this film, their presence added something very special to the film.
All in all, this is a very good movie. It's not going to leave you confused, wondering about the meaning of life or even laughing your rear-end off remembering some of the "high points". However, it is a very good entertaining movie. Go see it. More than once. I am