Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Let's get one thing very, very clear before we begin: "A New Hope," "The Empire Strikes Back," "Return of the Jedi" and now "The Phantom Menace" are not Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These are four pretty dumb action movies characterized chiefly by cool special effects, pabulum "messages" delivered at strategic intervals, pretty visuals, and hilariously wooden acting. In any case, I am confident that everyone who actually needs to read a review of this would like to know about the actual merits of the movie, and everyone who doesn't need to know doesn't need to read the review.

Anyway, this "Star Wars" distinguishes itself from the three previous ones by upping the ante on every key quality of the previous ones. The effects and visuals in this film are truly thrilling. George Lucas makes one feel speed, vastness, and an acute sense of place in totally special-effected locales, in a way that many people try to achieve but only Lucas seems to have a handle on. Starships lumber off the ground and accelerate in unfamiliar but instantly real ways, armies plausibly fill vast emerald plains, cities extend down cliffs and up into the stratosphere, and of course stuff blows up, including the obligatory execution of an orbiting enemy vessel that must be included in every cool "Star Wars" movie. As in every other "Star Wars" movie, the special effects aren't just sitting there, either; they draw the viewer into their realm and then start pouring on the excitement, which is the main point for non-obsessives. Parts of this movie are so exciting and absorbing as to make one forget that time is passing.

In the realm of makeup special effects...well, most of the puppets are computerized now, about which more below, but someone deserves an award for Natalie Portman's costumes. Possibly Natalie Portman, for sitting through what must have been endless makeup sessions and ozone-layer-killing amounts of hair spray. The end results are pretty spectacular, though. In this vein, it is really hard to imaging Natalie Portman "having feelings" for Jake Lloyd, as she is 16 and he is 10 (although not as annoying as some critics would have us believe). What she would mean by feelings aren't in Jake Lloyd's emotional universe. It's a bit disturbing. But, hey, Natalie Portman's in the movie.

Did I say upping the ante on every quality? The acting is much more wooden that in the first three, despite featuring much better actors. (I am assuming no one wants to seriously put forth the assertion that Mark Hamill is a comparable thespian to Ewan McGregor.) Some blame must be laid upon Lucas in his role as director, who apparently encouraged such a characterless reading style. Further, some must be placed on Lucas in his role as writer, for making great drama out of these lines would be comparable to the proverbial sow's ear-silk purse transformation. Still more blame, though, must be placed on Lucas in his role as computer-generated-character pimp. First and foremost among the atrocities committed with Sun Microsystems' best is Jar Jar Binks, a thoroughly fake-looking construct whose largely incomprehensible dialect is two parts misguided Jamaican imitation and one part Budweiser frog. He is incredibly annoying (no one laughed at his so-called jokes at AMC, least of all me) and a pale substitute, as nonhuman sidekicks go, for the lust-for-living, raring-to-go Chewbacca. Besides not looking much more realistic than a puppet, he is also harder to act with, as the scene where Ewan McGregor is supposed to be jawing with Binks adversarially but looks like he's talking to someone standing about a yard behind Binks. It's hard to blame McGregor for this, so it devolves onto Lucas.

With this in mind, I am still somewhat incredulous at the critical carpet bombing this movie has received. I know a whole buncha people view it as the long-awaited return of the prophets, and they are largely irritating people, but one should not review a movie based on its fans, or the incredible success of its prolific hype machine, or even on how long one has been secretly waiting to see the damn thing. The acting wasn't that much better in "Armageddon," and people acknowledged that movie's visceral punch in between dissing its human characters, lack of emotion and general unfitness to inhabit the upper realms of the cinematic pantheon. This movie serves a goodly, if not overwhelming, feast of thrills, and one has to ignore some misguided cutesiness and bad acting to get to them. That cutesiness and acting mean this is by no means a great film, but those undeniable edge-of-your-seat moments mean it ain't as bad as all that, either.

Attractive Woman Count: 1.

Attractive Man Count: 3.

Overall Grade: B-.

Yes, that means I thought that "The Matrix" was better. It was Lindemann

SNAPPY ANSWERS TO STUPID LINE READINGS (lines approximate)

Natalie Portman to Jake Lloyd: "Even if you did not give me this trinket, I would still have feelings for you."

Audience: "Really! I'll call you! Just get out of my apartment!"

Liam Neeson to Jar Jar Binks' ruler: "I saved Jar Jar Binks' life, and he owes me his in your religion."

Audience: "Take his life, please!"

Advisor to Natalie Portman: "If you call for a vote of no confidence, they will elect a stronger Chancellor."

Audience: "I've been hearing good things about this Hitler fellow from the planet Deutschtasia."

Yoda: "Clouded his [Anakin's] future is."

Audience: "Don't you watch movies?"

Liam Neeson: "I sense a great disturbance in the Force."

Audience: "You shouldn't have pulled Obi-Wan's finger!"

SPECIAL BONUS SPAM-O-MATIC HISTORY

This one inspired discussion on the e-mail list so spirited that I eventually forbade everyone from replying to all on the e-mail list. Basically, people were expressing their severe discontent with or complete dismissal of the film to the entire list, which had not happened before, and the estimable Robert Kahn presented the following rebuttal:

Let me be blunt:

You are the reason that world peace will never work. You are all 'haters' and let me tell you something about haters: once someone sees that there are other haters in the world, it is easier for them to become a hater themself. It is plain that this will happen to Anakin, but, let me back away from any Star Wars allusions to cap my point.

You are a disgrace to your generation, whatever generation you are. There is no doubt in my mind that you are all culturally deprived and/or frustrated human beings who can do no better than attack the great American ideals of money, money, and, if you can possibly bleed the public any more, even more money. Star Wars is what has, does, and will always make America great. What movie made the best first weekend run ever? It was Jurrassic Park-The Lost World, a film that probably deserves a D unless you are a gymnastics instructor. This was not a great movie, but it was so intrinsically part of American culture that there was absolutely nothing that could stop it. And there shouldn't be. The same is true of Star Wars. If you hate Jar Jar, so be it; there is nothing I can do unless George gives me the rights to make the next two movies in which case that character will be killed in several hundred different ways. However, by hating the movie, you are disgracing American culture and, in so doing, disgracing yourselves, allowing a mellowing of public opinion that can only lead us down the wrong path, the path to defeat at the hands of the Serbians and godless Communists. So there.

Love and Peace,

Robert

The basic problem here was not Robert's opinion or his bad-ass expression of it but the fact that the Spam had grown enough that not everyone on it could tell that Robert was engaging in hyperbole to make his point. There were some complaints to me. I succeeded in resolving them (mostly) with this:

The management of this list hereby disassociates itself from R.M. Kahn's opinion of its subscribers' emotional temperment, disgracefulness, cultural deprivation, frustration, eagerness to lose battles to Serbia and alternative economic orientation. It furthermore believes this message was meant as a joke, but crossed some line where its sarcasm could no longer be detected by several persons who read this list (apparently).

The management further questions whether PoliSci and History are the right majors for someone whose passion in life is so obviously marketing things which get people to rush the box office to pay $8 like salivating uncritical dogs. The management further notes that it will be more pleased with this marketing when its name is on the marquee (viz. "Walther Lamm 4: Mortal Confidentiality"). The management does have to agree that that was some excellent hype for "STE1:TFM," but does not see how this impacts the issue of the quality of the movie itself.

Finally, the management does in fact agree that making money is as American as apple pie and baseball (notwithstanding baseball's financial troubles), but also believes that freedom of (a) action and (b) expression are even more salient traits of our country, and respectfully submits to Robert and the list in general that perhaps these last two freedoms are what Lindemann, Greg, someone whose real name the management doesn't know, and his girlfriend were engaging in, and perhaps Robert in the future could endeavor to give his opinion a bit more respectfully, seeing as how the management's (a) girlfriend, (b) sister, (c) uncle and (d) mother are on the list. While the management itself was unconfused as to the sarcastic nature of the message, many others were not, and it would be unfortunate if there were any further misunderstandings.

I'm not a hater, I just crush a lot,

Lindemann

And that was the end of that story. I quite enjoyed Robert's message, but it was time to shut down replying to all then.

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