This is a beautiful and wonderful movie

Rating: Null/10 (1 October 2001)

I didn't like "Phantom Menace" much when it first came out. I thought it was stilted and boring. But, it was "Star Wars," so I felt like it was my duty to defend it.
Now that I've seen it again, removed from the hype and the publicity (both positive and negative), I have been won over, and I defend the movie not dutifully but enthusiastically. It is by far the most unjustly maligned movie in the "Star Wars" saga. The focus of everyone's ire seems to be Jar Jar Binks, who I admit is annoying--but I see him as a (mostly) failed attempt at comic relief rather than dwelling on him.
I think what really upsets many people is that this is not the original "Star Wars," that it isn't some kind of remake, that the joy and awe that overtook us back in 1977 hasn't been reproduced. Well, it can't be reproduced. It's been 25 years and the effects which blew us away back then have been improved upon a hundredfold, and we've seen FX-laden movie after FX-laden movie--not to mention, we are all older and more seasoned now. Lucas, to his credit, seemed to know that you simply cannot go home again when you've made a movie as groundbreaking and influential as "Star Wars," and so didn't even try. He made an entirely different movie instead of aping his earlier work. Instead of the triumvirate of "Star Wars" (Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia) we get a whole host of new characters, with a few familiar faces (R2-D2 and C3PO) or familiar names (Obi Wan Kenobi, as a young man rather than an old man) thrown in.
Boring, bad dialogue, horrible acting. Those are all accusations that have been leveled at "Menace." And they're all ill-founded. I find the dialogue-heavy scenes every bit as exciting as the pod race and the final lightsaber battle. Why? Because I enjoy finding out back story. I enjoy finding out what, exactly, led up to the events of the OT (Original Trilogy)--what the pre-Empire galaxy was like, how Emperor Palpatine came to power, what kind of people Luke Skywalker's parents were.

As for the "bad dialogue" accusation, I will admit there are some cringe-worthy lines, but the same is true of the OT. In fact, the script for "Menace" has fewer cringe-worthy lines than any of the films in the OT. It has a concise, well-put-together screenplay, with a more complex plot than "Star Wars" fans are accustomed to. True, it lacks the smart-alecky humor that characterized the OT (indeed, many have notied that it could have benefitted from the addition of a Han Solo type character, a wisecracking disbeliever, and I agree on that point), but I am willing to forgive that more readily than many.
Now onto the acting. Jake Lloyd as Anakin Skywalker gets all the ire that isn't reserved for Jar Jar Binks. My opinion is that he isn't acting. He's being himself. He's a nine-year-old kid playing a nine-year-old kid, who suddenly gets to play with all these cool toys. I have seen better child actors, but I have seen worse child actors too. Jake Lloyd does a perfectly acceptable job, no better or worse than many actors in the "Star Wars" saga as a whole.
As for the rest of the actors, they are fine. Some of them are actually good. Liam Neeson brings a great deal of subtlety and gentle humor to his role as Jedi Master Qui Gon Jinn. Pernilla August is dignified and moving as the mother of a gifted child (Anakin) in a cruel universe. Natalie Portman is convincing both as the necessarily icy and unemotional Queen Amidala and as the warmer, yet still noble, Padme. And then there is Ian McDiarmid, who all but oozes evil as Senator (future Emperor) Palpatine. Instead of the two-dimensional, cackling villain we get in "Return of the Jedi," Palpatine is ruthless but subtle, a deceptively gentle-voiced schemer who artfully manipulates his way to a position of power. Ewan McGregor as Obi Wan Kenobi is not given much to do, but what he is given, he carries of with aplomb. In fact, I can't think of a really bad performance in this movie. At worst, the actors are overly restrained.
I hope someday that the bashing this film has received will die away and people will give it another chance. It really is a good movie.