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janice's review: Sheesh. Where should I start in reviewing the new Star Wars movie for you? Frankly, the task is overwhelming. So is the film. Mike and I have seen it twice now, and there is still so much to take in and see!
The first time I saw it, I just let the story suck me in and take me for a two-and-a-half hour ride. One of the first things that rang true for me was that Star Wars really is intended for children. I've baby-sat enough times to know that kids are going to love Phantom Menace --- and George is the father of three young kids, so you know his vantage point. And you know, I think one of the reasons people are saying they are "disappointed" is because they saw the original trilogy as children. As such, the films had an unearthly magical quality to them. Maybe, as adults, we're too hardened to appreciate Phantom Menace in the same ways. We get caught up in performance levels and casting choices and technology. But I don't think that George really made the films for us, the kids who saw the originals 16 years ago. The films are to capture the imaginations of this new generation. And I think it will succeed.
So, anyway, I thought the story was just fine, thank you. And as far as performance levels, casting choices and such, I thought those were fine, too. There are some scenes where Jake Lloyd (who plays Anakin, a.k.a. the future Darth Vader) comes off as fakey. Such as when Qui-Gon picks him up and puts him in the pod racer and he goes "Whoa!" but his facial expressions don't change one bit. That bothers me. And then there's the scene with him and R2 in the fighter. But I thought he handled the scene where he leaves his mother very nicely. And speaking of his mother, I thought she gave a wonderful performance for sure! I really hope she'll be in future episodes.
Liam Neeson gives a calmness and resonance to Qui-Gon, a Jedi Master. During the duel between him and Darth Maul, there's a scene where they get caught in these force fields. And as Darth paces back and forth like an angry dog, Qui-Gon just kneels down solemnly. It always sends shivers down my back to see it!
Admittedly, I was a little disappointed (ooh, there's that word...) to see that Ewan McGregor (a.k.a. the best actor of my generation) wasn't used very much. Especially since he was soooo good! He really gave the presence of a young Alec Guiness. I've read that Ewan studied Alec's performance to imitate his facial expressions and vocal inflections, and his work pays off! I can't wait to see Episodes II and III, with much more Ewan!
And I'm excited to see Natalie Portman in future episodes, too. As with Ewan, I was hoping for more from the elegantly-dressed Queen Amidala. And it'll be good to see her paired with someone closer to her real age. It was yucky to see the 18-year-old Portman and 10-year-old Lloyd grinning at each other and acting like they were falling in love or something. Eww. And although it was not Natalie's fault, I wasn't exactly impressed with the way Lucas handled the Padme/Amidala situation. I felt it could have been more defined so the audience isn't left shaking their heads over what happened. I read an excerpt from the children's book "Queen Amidala's Journal" or something like that, and there was a passage where something happened that they should have let happen in the movie. It would have cleared things up nicely. And that's all I will say since I don't want to give anything away...
As for Jar Jar...come on! Give the aquatic creature a break! Yes, he's lame, but kids love him and he serves well as sort-of a "comic relief." And he's pretty cute in the scene where Qui-Gon introduces him to Obi-Wan and he grins at him goofily.
Oh, and do I even need to comment on the special effects and the amazing technology and wonderful sound system? Yes, it's all amazing! The cityscapes are just gorgeous and you really get the sense that everything is real. And even the compuer animated characters, like Jar Jar, are so deceptively well-created. I love the scene where Padme pulls Jar Jar from the pod racer. The first time I saw it, it was so natural and real that it didn't even register as, hey! Natalie Portman just grabbed air and Lucas added in a computer-generated graphic of Jar Jar...
So, all in all, Phantom Menace is really a delight. Is it the best movie ever made? Hardly. But it is great, and certainly a pioneer in technology. So, ignore those stiff shirts at Newsweek, go see the film and relive a little part of your childhood. : ) (janice.99)
mike's review: Like millions of people in their mid- to late twenties who were kids when the original Star Wars trilogy came out, I have been eagerly awaiting the Star Wars prequel trilogy for the last 16 years, since the release of Return of the Jedi in 1983. In the months leading up to the release of "The Phantom Menace," I experienced the same anticipation which led up to "Jedi" in that year of my youth, soaking in gossip and trying to avoid spoilers, greedily snatching up the newest action figures, and basically feeling like an 11-year-old all over again. It's been great.
The downside to my original 11-year-old experience, though, was that my parents, who just didn't get it, wouldn't let me stand in line to see "Jedi" on opening day. (I'm still pretty embarrassed about the tantrum I threw.) That's why Janice will forever be my heroine for waiting 5 hours in line at the theater to get advance opening-night tickets for The Phantom Menace!
And I'm happy to report that finally seeing the movie itself after all these years of anticipation has only increased my boyish excitement. It's a Star Wars movie through and through, and a perfect fit with the original trilogy. It has that same funky, retro Flash Gordon vibe, as the characters and story careen from planet to spaceship to planet. In this aspect, it most closely resembles the original Star Wars (a.k.a. "A New Hope").
Of course, now George Lucas has the resources and technology to do things that he could've only imagined in 1977, and the results are some of the most fantastic visions ever on screen. The cities and landscapes are stunning, the pod race sequence makes the speeder bike chase in "Jedi" seem like a lazy stroll in the woods, and Obi-Wan vs. Vader looks like My Dinner With Andre next to Obi-Wan & Qui-Gon vs. Maul. The creatures are a mix of old-fashioned rubber puppets and computer animation, with the latter being more successful. Jar Jar, while cartoonish at times, is charming and interacts beautifully with the live-action characters; Boss Nass and Watto are amusingly characterized and wonderfully animated; and Jabba is priceless in his cameo. The prosthetic creatures suffer in comparison: Yoda, alas, lacks the spark of life he had in the original films, and the bad-guy race's masks have uniformly terrible lip-synching, like a badly-dubbed foreign movie (an effect only heightened by their Asian-sounding accents).
As for the humans, well, the talent assembled is more than capable. The characters with the greatest resonance are Qui-Gon Jinn, played with a wonderful combination of understated authority and quiet rogueishness by Liam Neeson, and Shmi Skywalker, played by Ingmar Bergman veteran Pernilla August, who provides a gravity and depth of emotion to the Skywalker home which unfortunately little Anakin isn't allowed. If we already didn't know the arc of Anakin's fate, perhaps it would be less bothersome that he seems like a pretty shallow kid, both as written and as portrayed by Jake Lloyd. On the other hand, if he were a more brooding character, it might be harder for the kids in the audience to picture themselves in his place as he has his amazing adventures, which I'm sure is what Lucas intended. In any case, no one character is the main focus of the movie, and there are many nice, subtle moments among them which are just as memorable as any of the visual effects.
"The Phantom Menace" is not a perfect movie by any stretch of the imagination, but its quirks, to me, only make it that much more "Star Wars." If it were flawless, it just wouldn't feel right. Part of the charm of Star Wars is the hokey dialogue (which Lucas overtly acknowledges in the first scene of the new film), the goofy creatures (whether rubber suits or computer-animated), and the bloopers which fans discover through repeated viewing (the stormtrooper hits his head! That's Samuel L. Jackson's stand-in in the background!). The Star Wars universe is not a perfect universe--spaceships have chipped paint, crimelords overeat, droids malfunction, and Jedi tell bad jokes--and this makes it a human universe.
Star Wars is a whiz-bang fantasy that captured the imaginations of myself and millions of other kids the way that pulpy sci-fi anthology magazines captured the imaginations of kids from George Lucas's generation. The original trilogy started with a kinetic blast and deepened in resonance over the following episodes. The Phantom Menace blasted me off into a galaxy far, far away the same way that "Star Wars" did, and I can't wait to see what Episode II has in store for us! (mike.99)
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