The Phantom Menace is a film I feel somewhat reluctant to review as so many others have picked it apart that I'm not sure if I have anything new to add. However there are certain things that stuck out to me in my most recent viewing, so I'm going to try to present my own personal perspective on this as much as possible without rehashing many of the common complaints most people have with it.
The biggest problem this movie has is it's badly written characters. You would think that Obi Wan and Anakin's relationship would be the focus, but Obi Wan has almost nothing to do here other than spout expository dialogue. The few character moments he does get are with Qui Gon and not Anakin. In fact I don't think they speak to each other even once in the entire film. This becomes especially problematic in later installments as their relationship is so crucial to the saga as a whole. Anakin himself has is pretty much reduced to a savoir stereotype. He's a kind of child prodigy capable of building his own protocol droid and pod racer. With that said, he does have a few genuine character moments. In one scene some of Anakin's friend's (at least I think there his friends) taunt him about his rather low prospects for winning the pod race. This is basically your classic underdog scenario. It might work ok if it wasn't for the rather poor acting from the kid's in this scene, though I do think it create's a little sympathy for Anakin and increases the investment in the pod race slightly. The other important scene is where he leaves his mother. Again this works ok, thanks in no small measure to John William's score and also to Pernilla August's performance, but the film hasn't done enough to make me care about Anakin for it to move me very much. Then there's Qui Gon Jin. Now I like Liam Neeson as much as the next guy but Qui Gon is not a very well written character. His only noticeable trait is his occasional stretching of the rules. He and Obi Wan's relationship is reduced to him giving out generic sagely advice and Obi Wan occasionally making a dry joke like "the negotiations were short". Finally there's Padme. In some way's she actually the most developed character, she clearly feels alot of responsibility for her people but seems to lack the experience to really effectively lead them. She also goes through an arc of sorts, gaining a certain amount of humility through her experiences on Tatooine. With that said, Natalia Portman's performance is really stiff and lifeless. Her range of emotions are basically stoic, vaguely cheery, and pouty. As a result of this her character is not ultimately very likable. As far as her relationship with Anakin goes it comes of as more creepy than anything considering how much younger Jake Loyd was than Portman (eight years to be precise).
The other big problem The Phantom Menace has is the way it's shot and edited. If I learned one thing from my most recent viewing it's how sloppily edited this film is. As shown in the video below, the transitions between scenes are particularly bad. Many scenes end with a character saying a line of dialogue and the camera awkwardly holding on them for a second or two before a wipe to the next scene. In addition to this many scenes, particularly those involving the Trade Federation, are really brief, giving the film a rather disjointed feel. Another result of the sloppy filmmaking is that most of the action scenes lack any tension. This is partly because I'm not invested in the characters or the story. More importantly though these scenes aren't set up well. Most of them occur rather at random. The first light-saber battle happens when Darth Maul attacks Qui Gon as he's about to board the ship. I have no idea why he choose this specific moment instead of attacking him when he's more isolated in the middle of the desert but it's probably because the writer (aka George Lucas) needed to give him and Anakin a quick and easy escape route. This is rather typical of the action scenes in this film, they come out of nowhere and end quickly with little or no real threat to the characters involved. Another issue is that, half of the time, the characters act really nonchalant during these sequences, like they don't really care. The only two sequences where these problems aren't present are the pod race and the final battle, though even these scenes have some major problems. The climax in particular is way overstuffed jumping back and forth between four different action scenes with very little connecting threads between them.I could go on and on about the problems with this film. As many people have mentioned the political machinations are confusing and boring, though I think they could have worked if they were better explained and presented with better dialogue and more lively shooting and editing. I won't even get into Jar Jar or midi-chlorians but suffice to say that one is incredibly irritating and adds alot of really low-brow, childish humor to the film and the other reduces the mystical force to a measurable scientific quantity. I also think its telling that both elements were greatly reduced in the other prequels.
So is there anything I like in this movie? Not much. Ewan Mcgregor was a good casting choice even if he has nothing to do. Ian Mcdiarmid is appropriately menacing as Palpatine/Darth Sidious. The duel of fates is really cool, if a bit disconnected from the rest of the climax. Once he is finally allowed to go all out, Ray Park gives a energetic physical performance as Darth Maul. There are some cool sets and the costume and makeup design is top notch. Ben Burt's sound design is great as always. I do like the pod race even if it is basically CGI Ben Hur. The CGI itself holds up better than I thought it would, though the excessive use of green screen is really off putting. And of course John Williams score is awesome.
Unfortunately none of this is enough to save the movie, so The Phantom Menace remains a clunky, tedious mess albeit one with lot's of eye candy and a killer soundtrack.
Score: 4/10
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