Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Movie Review

Article by Gabe Zia

Lazy Film Critic - Road to Episode VII

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Movie Review

So for the week leading up to the release of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, I've decided to review all six of the previous films in the series. Yeah, I'm doing it in story linear order, meaning I'll unfortunately start with the prequels. More specifically, I'll start with the most hated of the star wars films, The Phantom Menace.

Now, I'm gonna be 100% honest here. While it's by no means a good movie, one I'd avoid watching under any circumstance other than to review it. However, I don't think it's the complete failure many Star Wars fans accuse it of being, in fact there are some parts of the film I don't mind. I'll start with those, then get to what's rightfully hated about the film. First off, I don't think the acting is that bad. Not for the kid who plays Anakin, but mainly Ewan Mcgregor and Liam Neeson. Ewan Mcgregor especially, I feel like he's not given enough credit for these movies, because I think he actually does a pretty decent job at playing the young Obi-Wan. While he's much better in the role in the other two prequels, I think he's just fine here. 

There's also the action sequences, which I'll admit are mostly entertaining. The lightsaber fights are really fast, there's no slow motion, and its' really cool to watch some of the fight sequences (especially the last one). In fact, the film is kind of like a martial arts film in that right. Now, one may argue that what made the lightsaber fights in the originals was the elegance of them, that they weren't really fights. From an artistic standpoint, you'd be right, but if we're simply talking entertainment, these ones are better.

Now, it may sound like I actually like this movie, but rest assured I absolutely do not. Entertaining fight sequences and two good performances (McGregor and Neeson) don't at all make up for the horrendous stuff in this movie. I'll skip over Jar-Jar because at this point, it's really not worth mentioning. Instead, let's talk about the story of this film. This entire movie is written in this really weird way that forces events in the plot, not for the sake of the film, but for the sake of it being a prequel. In fact, the film goes to such extensive lengths to make sure you know it's a prequel that the actual plot of the film takes a backseat to the prequel portion of it. Not to mention, the prequel bits themselves don't make much sense, and feel really rushed.

Let's talk about the writing. This is an aspect I think really sucked a quality out of all three of the prequels, and yet it's rarely addressed, not to the magnitude of the acting or characters anyway. The dialogue in all of the first two prequels (and even a lot of Revenge of the Sith) is absolute garbage. Between annoying dialogue, boring dialogue, absolutely nonsensical dialogue, and odd expositional dialogue, this movie has it all as far as bad movie dialogue goes. And, to address the elephant in the room, a good 90% of the characters in this movie are incredibly annoying, pretty offensive racial stereotypes, made with creepy looking CGI, or (in the case of Jar-Jar) all of the above.

Final Rating
Of the prequels, The Phantom Menace is not the worst, but it's not the best either. It has its qualities, Ewan Mcgegor and Liam Neeson are both good, the main villain has a pretty cool design, and the action is actually very entertaining. Those things are enough to get this movie above terrible, and no further than that. It's by no means a good movie, but if I'm being honest I don't think it's the kind of godawful film most people - especially hardcore Star Wars fans - claim it to be.

Phantom Menace - 1/5