Heavily flawed beginning to second "Star Wars" trilogy

Rating: Null/10 (15 October 2003)

Episode I takes place some three decades before the original series: The Jedi Knights, led by Yoda(Frank Oz) and Mace Windu(Samuel L. Jackson), are still alive and are in the galactic peacekeeping business; The Republic has yet to become the fascist Empire; The future Darth Vader is a little Pod-racing slave kid(Jake Llloyd); Obi-Wan Kenobi(Ewan Mcgregor) is only an apprentice Jedi Knight; and Palpatine(Ian Mcdiarmid), the evil Emperor from ROTJ, is a senator.(Some plot spoilers ahead) However, Palpatine isn't all he seems, and in his alter ego as Sith Lord "Darth Sidious", sets in motion a plan for a Trade organization to blockade his home planet. Obi-Wan and his master Qui-Gon(Liam Neeson)-a dignified but eccentric Jedi knight-try to settle the blockade but find themselves swept up in the conflict, teaming with an annoying cross between a Frog and a Dinosaur, Jar-Jar Binks(Ahmed Best) and the stoic ruler of Naboo, Queen Amidalia(Natalie Portman) who also has an alter ego, the handmaiden Padme'. Eventually they end up "out of gas" on the desert planet of Tatooine, first seen in the original STAR WARS, where they meet young Anakin Skywalker and his mother(Pernilla August). After betting on Anakin to win a race in order to get off-planet and escaping Sidious's right hand-man, Darth Maul(Ray Park), the group heads to Coruscant where the galactic authorities there can do nothing to either stop the invasion or find something to do with Anakin. So it's back to Naboo for the epic three-sided battle scene, a technique used in JEDI. The film ends with Anakin starting the journey to become a Jedi knight, and the galaxy in the hands of Palpatine. PHANTOM MENACE has a fairly interesting plot which helps set up future elements of the STAR WARS saga. However, the execution is flawed, and one can become extremely confused by it all, especially since politics were not a major part of the original STAR WARS saga. The film's acting is also so-so. While Neeson, Mcdiarmid, and some others turn in good performances, we have to deal with amateurish acting by Jake Lloyd and Natalie Portman, who are given pretty banal dialogue(Unfortunately, this becomes a bigger problem in the second prequel film). Others, such as Mcgregor and Jackson, are given almost nothing to do at all. Worst of all is Jar-Jar Binks, who speaks in a high-pitched, pidgin English and has such incomprehensible lines as "You say Boom de-gasser, crashes the Boss's Heyglibber..." and so on. The film is also loaded with tasteless scatological humor. The film's main saving grace are it's excellent action sequences, including a Pod-race on Tatooine and an epic lightsaber battle at the film's climax. But otherwise, a deeply flawed film in what has turned out to be a deeply flawed trilogy (so far).