The Anti-Phantom Menace

Rating: 10/10 (20 May 2005)

Wow. A lot more than I was expecting. This is, without a doubt, the only prequel film that can live up to the original trilogy. This movie has so much depth and heart to it, and anybody who doesn't like this film is either just biased against the prequels, or simply has a heart of stone. This movie takes place in three parts: The space battle, the seduction of Anakin, and the end of the Jedi and Anakin's transformation into Darth Vader.
The opening crawl pans down into a two minute long tracking in the middle of a HUGE space battle, which rivals the one in Return of the Jedi (although the original Death Star run will always be my favorite). The CGI looks real, it looks great, it's about time that there was a decent space battle in the original Star Wars. There's also some great pilot banter between Anakin and Obi-Wan in this scene, and the battle escalates to a rescue mission inside a huge spaceship, in the style of old-school Star Wars, just like in the Death Star rescue mission in the original, ending in the most spectacular crash landing that possibly could be imagined.
The middle of the movie contains some of the stiff acting from people as they discuss politics, as well as some cheezy love scenes with Anakin and Padme, but are short and few compared to Episodes 1 and 2, so they don't bring much drag to the flow of the story. The true scene-stealer during this time is Palpatine, played by Ian McDiarmid, who does a perfect job in seducing Anakin to the dark side, setting up the perfect plot that seriously makes the Jedi look like the bad guys to Anakin. And when he becomes the Emporer, he has such a sadistic and animal-like aura to him. He is truly EVIL. Among this scene, Obi-Wan, played perfectly by Ewan McGregor, takes a detour and has a cool confrontation with an alien cyborg named Grievous. While Grievous himself isn't the greatest villain (although better than Darth Maul), he looks very real for an all CGI character.
Once Anakin pledges his allegiance to the Dark side, the story turns from day to night. It becomes the most emotional hour in the entire Star Wars series, including the original trilogy. The Jedi are killed off in the most tragic, backstabbing way ever thought up. Anakin does some outrageously terrible things that I had no idea George Lucas, who has been catering to kids with these Star Wars movies, could even think of. Yoda goes one on one in a superb lightsaber fight against Palpatine, which totally blew me away. The events on Mustafar, however, are the very heart and soul of this movie. I won't say a word about the tragic events that unfold on that planet. I'll only say that Hayden Christensen and Ewan McGregor deserve Oscars for that scene. Hayden did such a better job, compared to his awful performance in Attack of the Clones. I was on the brink of crying, it was so emotional, so powerful. There was no cheering from me on anything that went on, my mouth just hung open and I muttered some sad "Oh my God's" under my breath as it was almost painful to watch. I only wish George Lucas could have done something like this in his previous two movies. The very ending of the movie flows perfectly with the opening to the original Star Wars, bringing back the retro-style sets and being aboard the Tantive IV (very first ship shown in the original Star Wars) again.
Some people may complain about little tiny things, like a few bad one-liners or one or two slightly choppy visual effects, but in my mind, they are nothing compared to the true piece of art that George Lucas has made. Thank you George for saving Star Wars. GO SEE THIS MOVIE. GET YOUR HEAD EXAMINED IF YOU DON'T FEEL THE SLIGHTEST BIT OF EMOTION FROM THIS MOVIE.