A Menace to Star Wars? A Phantom Menace Review

OK Phantom Menace:

There is so much that is wrong with this movie that I don't have the free time to fully replicate in words the distaste that I have with this first installment of Lucas' prequels.

Jar Jar Binks, what can I say? a master stroke!. Lucas said that we'd all come to love him eventually in the series, and that he'll play a pivotal role in the final two installments and we'll then understand why he's in the first one. So many people hated him, that he must have changed his mind because in Episode II he's in it for about five minutes! He's a slapstick CGI buffoon that brings down every scene he's in.

Then there are 'Midichlorians?' (that won't take any of the magic away from the Star Wars knowledge we hold dear will it!?) Anakin's mom had an immaculate conception? Little creatures that are a pure essence of The Force? Oh please no!

A lot of the CGI characters (Jar Jar aside) are just plain annoying, the comedy falls flat and most of the performances by the real life actors are unimpressive. Also what I failed to understand with this movie is that if it was made just for 12 year old kids, then why did Lucas include such a sophisticated political subplot, and have so many scenes rely heavily upon meetings with councils, when it would go over most peoples' heads? I barely knew a lot of what was going on during these meetings and it only took repeat viewings of the film to grasp. I remember thinking 'this is weird', We went from Mr Binks fumbling over himself and shocking his floppy ears off into this involving and boring political debate! Politics is never that interesting even when the candidates are in floating dodgems!

The Pod race (in my mind one of the two decent sequences in the film) looked astoundingly real. Yet of the stadium, aliens, pods and landscape, practically the only real thing was the sky!
I did feel that Liam Neeson did a very good job with what he had to work with. He is a professional actor who knows how to be convincing in just about anything that he does. I do recall George Lucas saying the back story was always in his mind even when he made episodes IV-VI so I was always confused by how Obi Wan never mentioned Qui Gon (perhaps I was misinformed). I couldn't help but compare Ewan McGregor to a young Alec Guiness, something I felt he overdid to some degree but improved substantially in episodes II+III
Darth Maul kicks ass. Too bad he's only in it for about 20 minutes. They needed to utilize his radicalness for a much longer amount of runtime and I felt as though he could have had some kind of back story other than ...well, standing behind Palpatine allot.
Natalie Portman looks good as the troubled Padme/Amidala in her Leia-esque outfits but aside from that is pretty redundant, boring and emotionless.
Also Jake Lloyd does well as the young and moody Anakin Skywalker(well he was a slave I guess) and for some reason the first conversation between Anakin and Padme although fairly innocent does have flirty undertones and gives me the creeps even today, this could be my imagination or perhaps it is justified with the foreknowledge of their impending relationship and kids.
It's weird seeing the way everyone calls the future murderous, neck-crushing, supreme bad egg Darth Vader 'Anni'! Imagine the bullying he endured at school! No wonder he turns to the Dark Side. I am willing to bet Darth Maul never got called a girl's name or if he did then his suicidal tormentor met with a shockingly sticky end.
I remember being glad to see C-3PO and R2 and their presence making Phantom feel like a SW film even for a bit and the history of R2 is believable I suppose but are you telling me that Darth Vader built C-3PO? And 3PO grew up on Tatooine?
In the first Star Wars, when R2 and 3PO land on Tatooine 3PO has no idea where he is...has he had his memory erased? Too many unanswered questions.
It's obvious that Lucas wanted to throw the droids in, which gave me some sense of familiarity, but the way he used them makes no sense, even within the logic of Star Wars.

The thing that upsets me most about this