Star wars: The Phantom Menace
Directed by George Lucas
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
is the first Star Wars movie in several millennia.
For any admirable person who doesn't know,
The
Phantom Menace is a sci-fi action movie
about a bunch of good guys - The Jedi vs. the
a bunch of bad guys -The Sith - in a wrangle
over the a galactic Empire. A young kid Anakin
(who will grow up to be Darth Vader, well, it
beats being a lawyer) is conscripted by the
Jedi to fight the "Dark Side".
The first thing to note about
The Phantom
Menace is the shitload of computer graphics.
Behold the incessant, - and not unlovely - CGI.
To take just one example, during the pod race,
those engines did not just blow up in a cheap
fireball, they disintegrated, with the internal
components rendered as well as the outer casings.
The race itself looked astoundingly real. Yet
of the stadium, aliens, pods and landscape,
practically the only real thing was the sky.
The Phantom Menace is a computer
game without the interactivity. And surprise
surprise! There's a spin-off computer game.
The Phantom Menace looks for all
the world like a two-hour trailer for the next
two films in the series. And yet it still manages
to be good in a superficial way. But naturally
it was bound to incur the wrath of the purist
geeks. Fanboys were expecting brilliance for
some reason. Lucas himself actually said that
many fans would enjoy queuing up
more
than watching the film. And the fanboys got
Jar Jar Binks! Haha! Serves them right.
Then there is the over-cute child Anakin Skywalker:
it's weird seeing the way everyone calls the
future murderous, neck-crushing, supreme bad
egg Darth Vader "Annie"! Imagine the bullying
he endured at school. No wonder he turns to
the Dark Side. I am willing to wager Darth Maul
never got called a girl's name - or if he did
then his suicidal tormentor met with a shockingly
sticky end.
But if a film's going to be deeply flawed then
let it be deeply flawed like
The Phantom
Menace! Nearly every scene's lease is
too brief. With the exceptions of the ridiculous
Binks, the tedious muppet
Yoda
and the assorted women and children (unfortunately
in this type of movie cute things are just not
as interesting as warriors and monsters) all
the characters are impressive. Darth Maul's
glare is so evil and his swordsmanship is so
dangerous that it's an absolute crime he gets
a now-you-see-me-now-you-don't part. Qui-Gon
Jinn is your quiet type, unsensational but good
fun with a light sabre. Kenobi ditto. Palpatine
is delectably cunning and slippery. Sebulba
is a joyfully nasty piece of work. And Watto!
Watto is just sleazy shiftiness rendered glorious.
To have so many groovy characters come and go
while the buffoon Ja Ja Binks hogs
the screen is enough to drive you insane. But...
even when crippled with Ja Ja,
Star Wars pisses on
touchy feely
Star Trek's cornflakes.
**** Spoiler sentence:
Incidentally, the fight ending has been cut
and pasted right out of "Blind Fury".
**** End Spoiler
Jar
Jar Binks and Yoda are locked up in a different
galaxy even further-further away, where they
can do no more harm.
Add your comment to this page
 | | | | |
| From: |
sinah | Subject: | 2001-12-12 10:11:13 |
| | | | |
| From: |
hung-piece | Subject: | 2002-01-11 18:41:34 |
| | | | |
| From: |
True Critic | Subject: | 2002-06-05 00:29:50 |
| | | | |
| From: |
me | Subject: | 2005-12-09 18:22:05 |
| | | | |
help: how to add your comment Page hits: 6633
Attack of the Clones
review
