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WARNING! THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR STAR WARS EP. I: THE PHANTOM MENACE!
My second review of the day and the first of the prequel trilogy; I really wanted to like this movie and I did... kinda... sorta. I really can't decide whether the positives out way the negatives or not. The story is good, the human characters are mostly good even if the dialog is a clunky in places and visually it all looks stunning but then there's everything else... Like I just mentioned the dialog is extremely hit or miss and with young Anakin it's almost always a miss. I know a lot of people have complained about the quality of Jake Lloyd's acting but I would argue that he wasn't really given the best material to work with either. Then there is the thinly veiled racial stereotypes that plague the alien raced depicted in this movie, I swear to God when I first heard the Neimoidians speak, I face palmed!
Let's start off with the good, two words: Liam Neeson! I knew from the one or two times I'd watched this movie as a kid that his character dies and I spent the majority of the movie thinking, "No! He's too cool to die!" but alas George Lucas broke my heart... McGregor was also good so I'm looking forward to seeing what he's like in the next two movies but personally, I preferred Neeson, he was just so captivating to watch on screen and perfectly embodied the aura that a Jedi Knight is supposed to have!
Once again, I really enjoyed the storytelling here. I love the way George Lucas always creates multiple plots and weaves them all in together instead of just having one main objecting within the movie although this is the first movie he's written single-handedly for the franchise since A New Hope and I'm afraid to say, a lot of the weaknesses in that movie's writing can also be seen again here. Lucas does seem to have gotten a better grip on how characters should react to certain life events, for example if we were to compare Luke's leaving Tatooine with Obi Wan Kenobi to Anakin leaving Tatooine with Qui-Gon Jinn, Anakin's reaction in a 100% more realistic given his situation even if the dialog still misses the mark in helping to convey the emotion but a 9-year-old boy would be initially excited and then sad once he realised that he was leaving his mother behind whereas I still am not over Luke's non-reaction to his aunt and uncle being murdered (read my first review)! Basically, the point that I'm trying to make is that I really like Lucas' storytelling but I feel like he struggles to capture emotional depth within his dialog.
Personally, I find George Lucas to be a much stronger director than a writer, this entire movie is visually stunning. The shots are unique and interesting, the set design is unreal and the COSTUMING, THE COSTUMING...
Another thing that I really enjoyed about this movie was the AMAZING fight choreography by Nick Gillard, it really helped elevate the whole movie in my opinion. It's one of the things that I actually think they managed to improve from the original trilogy! The fights here are so much cooler than the plain out sword fighting in the first three movies. It kind of makes you realise that we never really got to see Luke as a fully trained Jedi Master (you shoulda finished your training in Dagobah, Luke... smh). Did you know they used air rams instead of wires for all of the flips and jumps? So there were people that were actually getting catapulted into the air to do all of those tricks!!! I just read about it on Wikipedia and now I'm shook!
Now... it's time to address the elephant in the room: JarJar Binks. I really wanted to like him, I really did. I knew that he was almost universally despised by the fandom but I was trying to keep an open mind as there had been things in the original trilogy that I'd been told were disliked that I actually enjoyed, like the Ewoks! But the Gungans are no Ewoks... I I just don't get the point behind JarJar, like what were you thinking, George? Don't get me wrong, the character design for the Gungans as a species is pretty cool and visually I totally get the idea of them but the characterisation? No. I get that he's supposed to be a comic relief character and in fairness, there are a couple of moments towards the beginning of the movie where I did find him to be relatively charming but as the story progressed and things started to take a more serious turn, his charm wore off for me. I don't think I've specified this in any of my previous reviews but I HATE cowardly characters especially ones that don't even try to be brave, that's probably why I find C-3PO so annoying too. I think JarJar is also the biggest example of an issue I had with this movie as a whole and that is that a lot of the heroic deeds that happen within this movie are done my accident as apposed to intentionally, like when JarJar takes down all those droids or when Anakin destroys the star ship at the end of the movie, I think this robs both characters of potentially redeeming moments.
My Ranking of The Phantom Menace:
2 out of 5 Stars
My second review of the day and the first of the prequel trilogy; I really wanted to like this movie and I did... kinda... sorta. I really can't decide whether the positives out way the negatives or not. The story is good, the human characters are mostly good even if the dialog is a clunky in places and visually it all looks stunning but then there's everything else... Like I just mentioned the dialog is extremely hit or miss and with young Anakin it's almost always a miss. I know a lot of people have complained about the quality of Jake Lloyd's acting but I would argue that he wasn't really given the best material to work with either. Then there is the thinly veiled racial stereotypes that plague the alien raced depicted in this movie, I swear to God when I first heard the Neimoidians speak, I face palmed!
Let's start off with the good, two words: Liam Neeson! I knew from the one or two times I'd watched this movie as a kid that his character dies and I spent the majority of the movie thinking, "No! He's too cool to die!" but alas George Lucas broke my heart... McGregor was also good so I'm looking forward to seeing what he's like in the next two movies but personally, I preferred Neeson, he was just so captivating to watch on screen and perfectly embodied the aura that a Jedi Knight is supposed to have!
Once again, I really enjoyed the storytelling here. I love the way George Lucas always creates multiple plots and weaves them all in together instead of just having one main objecting within the movie although this is the first movie he's written single-handedly for the franchise since A New Hope and I'm afraid to say, a lot of the weaknesses in that movie's writing can also be seen again here. Lucas does seem to have gotten a better grip on how characters should react to certain life events, for example if we were to compare Luke's leaving Tatooine with Obi Wan Kenobi to Anakin leaving Tatooine with Qui-Gon Jinn, Anakin's reaction in a 100% more realistic given his situation even if the dialog still misses the mark in helping to convey the emotion but a 9-year-old boy would be initially excited and then sad once he realised that he was leaving his mother behind whereas I still am not over Luke's non-reaction to his aunt and uncle being murdered (read my first review)! Basically, the point that I'm trying to make is that I really like Lucas' storytelling but I feel like he struggles to capture emotional depth within his dialog.
Personally, I find George Lucas to be a much stronger director than a writer, this entire movie is visually stunning. The shots are unique and interesting, the set design is unreal and the COSTUMING, THE COSTUMING...
and the title of American's Next Drag Super Star goes to...
NATALIE MOTHERF*CKING PORTMAN!!!
NATALIE MOTHERF*CKING PORTMAN!!!
Another thing that I really enjoyed about this movie was the AMAZING fight choreography by Nick Gillard, it really helped elevate the whole movie in my opinion. It's one of the things that I actually think they managed to improve from the original trilogy! The fights here are so much cooler than the plain out sword fighting in the first three movies. It kind of makes you realise that we never really got to see Luke as a fully trained Jedi Master (you shoulda finished your training in Dagobah, Luke... smh). Did you know they used air rams instead of wires for all of the flips and jumps? So there were people that were actually getting catapulted into the air to do all of those tricks!!! I just read about it on Wikipedia and now I'm shook!
Now... it's time to address the elephant in the room: JarJar Binks. I really wanted to like him, I really did. I knew that he was almost universally despised by the fandom but I was trying to keep an open mind as there had been things in the original trilogy that I'd been told were disliked that I actually enjoyed, like the Ewoks! But the Gungans are no Ewoks... I I just don't get the point behind JarJar, like what were you thinking, George? Don't get me wrong, the character design for the Gungans as a species is pretty cool and visually I totally get the idea of them but the characterisation? No. I get that he's supposed to be a comic relief character and in fairness, there are a couple of moments towards the beginning of the movie where I did find him to be relatively charming but as the story progressed and things started to take a more serious turn, his charm wore off for me. I don't think I've specified this in any of my previous reviews but I HATE cowardly characters especially ones that don't even try to be brave, that's probably why I find C-3PO so annoying too. I think JarJar is also the biggest example of an issue I had with this movie as a whole and that is that a lot of the heroic deeds that happen within this movie are done my accident as apposed to intentionally, like when JarJar takes down all those droids or when Anakin destroys the star ship at the end of the movie, I think this robs both characters of potentially redeeming moments.
My Ranking of The Phantom Menace:
2 out of 5 Stars
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