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Phantom Menace
"or what ever happened to acting?"

reviewed by Chuck0

(no spoiler space follows because you shouldn't spoil your day seeing this movie)

Last weekend I finally got around to seeing the latest installment of the Star Wars milieu. The fact that the suburban theater was nearly empty on a steamy holiday weekend whould have warned me to sneak into another movie. I was half expecting to be annoyed by teenagers who had already seen the film 5 times and could mouth the lines by heart. Instead, there wasn't a person within popcorn-spitting distance.

Nor could I seem to find any humans in this film. As I left the theater I was finally able to put my finger on what bothered me about Phantom Menace: it's a film about robots. They are everywhere. In almost every scene. They have speaking roles. And the bad guys aren't Stormtroopers with bad Good Germans inside, they are simply manufactured mobile appliances. The there are the human actors reduced to robot roles by the awful script and overwhelming special effects. At times Liam Neeson (Master Jedi Knight What's His Name), Natalie Portman (Queen Ahmigdod-What's-That-On-Your-Head, You look Like Londo Mollari), and that cute kid playing the Young Anakin Skywalker(tm) are tolerable as actors, but their mediocre moments are the best Lucas has to offer us. At one point it dawned on me that the actors seemed to be voyaging through a virtual world, kind of like Tron.

The Jedi knights were robotlike (and action figure-like) throughout the film and the Queen was a robot, until she was briefly allowed to step out of character. The kid was cute and was kind of funny, in a Disney kind of way, but I felt no sympathy for his character, which is essential given the evil guy he's going to grow up to be.

I'm embarassed to say, but I found the computer-generated Jar Jar Binks to be one of the most sympathetic human characters in the film. His character provided the only comic relief to the nonexistent plot. His character has been criticized as being a Stepin Fetchit stereotype, which I can kind of see, but he's really a poorly written trickster character. His tribe, the semi-aquatic Gungans, have been criticized as being racist caricatures of African Americans, but I think this was a bit of a stretch. The Gungans are obviously evolved amphibians. Ok, so maybe they act like stereotyped Jamaicans and their dialect could be construed as offensive. I contrast, I actually found the aliens in the Trade Federation to come across as fitting the "devious Asian" stereotype more clearly than what has been said about the Gungans. Gatto, or whatever he is called, the flying rodent who owns Anakin, also comes across strongly as the sterotypical "money-grubbing Jew."

Well, that about the only interesting thing that can be said about this mess of a film called the Phantom Menace. The crew that did the special effects and costumes should be commended for doing an outstanding job. The actors can't really be criticized, pro or con, because they weren't given any plot to work with. With this film, Lucas demonstrates that he should hand over the plot exopsition and character development to his friend Stephen Spielberg. The plot is worse than the worst crap Rick Berman can churn out. The storyline even fails as a compelling adolescent space opera, which at least the first 3 Star Wars movies were.

It's a shame that J. Michael Straczinski, of Bablyon 5 fame, couldn't have had the complete freedom to work his wonders with this concept. Imagine what we would have gotten if JMS had been allowed to explore the politics of the Trade Federation dispute with Naboo. We would have gotten more intrique and maybe a mass murder of Naboobians by the TF robots. JMS, as a veteran SF producer, would have also pared down the visual excess found in the Phantom Menace. The first Star Wars triology had special effects, but they were secondary to the human characters. Think about the simplicity of the battle on the Ice Planet in the Empire Strikes Back. If that scene had been filmed today, Lucas would have filled it with unnecessary visual clutter. Imagine zillions of robots and crap running around in the snow. Also, compare the banter between Luke, Hans and Leia and show me where something similar happened in the new movie.

Lastly, let me bag on Lucas for the poor understanding of military tactics that he depicts. In one battle scene, hardly pivotal it turns out, the Gungans are pitted against a mass army of Trade Federation robot toys. This battle takes place on an open plain, hardly a choice I can see the Gungans taking, considering they had intimate knowledge of the local jungle and lakes. If they had an advantage of terrain that was conducive to guerilla warfare, why did they engage the robot army on terrain suitable to the robots.

Is Lucas telling us that the Gungans are really stupid?

The liberation of Naboo is also unrealistic. How can a few people and a bunch of Jamaican frogs liberate a planet from a colonizing army in the span of a few hours? It's just too stupid that Anapkin Skyclocker (that cute kid) could shut down the Trade Federation's command and control structure with one errant energy blast.

Ok, I'll admit that part was pretty funny. I'm not sure if Lucas was parodying himself with that plot point, but I certainly thought so.

I had one scary thought walking home from this movie: the Phantom Menace could easily become the next Rocky Horror Picture Show.

7/9/1999