Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999), PG, ★★

Duel of the Fates.

Here we go, the prequels...ugh. Back in 1999, I knew some knowledge regarding Star Wars as I saw the original (I mean, the original trilogy on VHS and not the BS re-dubbed version) trilogy and knew and remembered most of the characters. Luke Skywalker. Princess Leia. Han Solo. Chewbacca. Darth Vader. The original trilogy is timeless. Now, George Lucas, the "visionary" director behind these next films that I'll review, opt to make a decision to continue on with the tradition of making the first three films before the origins of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader's story. He wanted to make the origins of Darth Vader's uphill to the Jedi side and downhill to the Dark Side. With the first movie, there are moments of greatness with the action sequences and battles but pedantic attempts to develop the characters with thin exposition and terrible dialogue.

The movie begins with Supreme Chancellor Valorum (Terence Stamp) sending out Jedi dispatches: Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and his apprentice, Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) to negotiate with the Trade Federation to end a blockade of battleships on Naboo. Darth Sidious (Ian McDiarmid), a Sith Lord, orders Federation Viceroy Nute Gunray (Silas Carson) to kill the Jedi and invade Naboo with the droid army. Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan fight some droids off and escape down to Naboo.

As they are on Naboo, they *sigh* unfortunately save Gungan outcast Jar-Jar Binks (Ahmed Best) from being killed during the invasion. (Why did they save him? We'll get to him later in the review.) Jar Jar leads both Jedis to an underwater Gungan city. This drags the movie to a halt with them involving Jar Jar and his problems with the leader and the laws. The Jedi try to persuade the Gungan leader but fail but they are helped to escape the capitol city of Theed. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan rescue Queen Amidala, really, their decoy (Keira Knightley), as their real Queen is disguised as a servant (Natalie Portman). They are able to escape on her royal starship as it is damaged by the Federation.

When R2-D2 fixes some of the repairs, their hyperdrive is damaged allowing them to land on Tatooine for repairs. Qui-Gon, Padme, R2-D2 and Jar Jar go into town and meet Watto, a seemingly Jewish junk shop owner, and his slave, Anakin (Jake Lloyd), who is a gifted pilot and engineer. But, Qui-Gon senses something with Anakin thinking he will bring balance to the Force. After waging his life with Watto after Anakin winning the pod race, Anakin is free and joins Qui-Gon and the crew to train to become a Jedi. I wonder what happens after that. Right?

A seemingly bad-ass Natalie Portman. 

Boy, this was a nightmare to re-visit again. Even though, it was not as painful because there were moments of excitement that is worth to watch on the big screen again. However, in the opening sequence, I felt that it was too much of a build-up with the Jedi characters discussing politics and showing us, the audience, what they can do with the lightsabers fighting off droid units. Plus, we easily get offended by the appearance of the villains of the Trade Federation, who look like a few evil Japanese rules with their accent and diplomatic solutions and how to take over another planet. They are not particularly interesting villains. They do not do anything.

Ok. Let's take a deep breath. Jar-Jar Binks. Saying or typing his name gives me the shivers because he is definitely one of the most annoying characters ever made. He has no leeway to the whole franchise because he is just there for suggestive comic relief and he only got one laugh out of me out of like 50 other jokes. But, his dialect seemed like Jamaican phonics that needs to be shown on subtitles on the DVD and/or Blu-ray.

The cast does what they can with the terse dialogue and the boring, plodded story. I actually liked Liam Neeson in the role as he is good with this thinly written character of a Jedi Master and he has good chemistry with Ewan McGregor, who is also pretty good. Ian McDiarmid does not have as much screen time, but we'll see more of him in the next movies. Natalie Portman tries to become a strong female near the end but I felt like her character is being moved around for the sake of the plot. And, poor Jake Lloyd does not get any direction from George Lucas as he basically represents him as a little whiny brat.

Let's get to the good stuff. The pod-racing sequence, even though it was sort of copying how the camerawork was structured, was fun and exciting but we know what happens to the one character we'll care about otherwise there'd be no Star Wars. And, the battle sequences toward the end mixed in with the duel of the fates with the criminally underused Darth Maul are awesome and worth the price of admission which is strongly accompanied by John Williams' score. And, that's about it. The whole movie felt languid especially in the middle portion of the movie with the political dialogue mixed in with George Lucas' terrible dialogue and direction. The first movie is ambitious but a highly disappointing entry.

**