COULD'VE BEEN A LOT BETTER

Rating: 3/10 (11 July 1999)

I went to this flick not expecting much of a storyline, after hearing comments from other people who'd seen it, and they all said this flick sucked maximum, I felt I had to see it myself...
Ohkay. Its DEFINITELY a kids movie, and I'm probably too old for it, so story-wise, TPM is probably suitable for the kids, (despite the semi-political storyline)
Loads upon loads of SFX, you kind of get bored with it after an hour or so, and I found JarJar Binks to be an absolute pain-in-the-ass with his antics and stoopid accent. I also found the Naboo queen's accent stilted, her lines seemed to come out of one bored actress. It was difficult connecting with the characters, they seemed more like background fodder while the real star was the SFX!
But I did like the battle between the two Jedi and Darth Maul - now THAT was probably the most awesome part of the flick, the way they fought looked real and was actually heaps better than all the CGI - because it was REAL!!! You actually get the feel of them fighting, it was kewl!
aside from that, I think this flick could've been a lot better. I found the ending to be cliched, a typical starwars ending one might say. There were holes in the plot ie Anakin trying to restart his pod engines and flying at that speed, he would've crashed the instant he took his eyes off the field.
George Lucas could've made a better story with this to equal the CGI, the flick probably would've pleased more of the audience....
I rate this 5 out of 10.