# Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

### reviewed by
Jonathan Richards

    TOY STORY

    STAR WARS I: THE PHANTOM MENACE
    Written and Directed by George Lucas
    With Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor
    UA North, De Vargas      PG       131 min

Say this for George Lucas: he still knows how to dazzle us visually. The hardware, the architecture -- there's plenty of eye candy in this retro opening episode of the Star Wars franchise.

There's very little for the heart, and nothing for the brain. Lucas's imagination fails him when it comes to spaceoid critters; he seems to have cut a devil's pact with Toys R Us. If the Gungan Jar Jar Binks doesn't get on your nerves pretty quickly, you're probably under twelve. And for all the 20 years of computerized advance in special effects, there's no moment to tingle the skin like that first "Star Wars" jump into hyperspace. The pod race here is exciting, but it feels like a video game.

The ground is dutifully laid for the next episode with the anti- Christ Anikin Skywalker (9-year-old Jake Lloyd), born of a virgin, and destined to father the twins Luke and Leia and then turn to the dark side as Darth Vader. Yoda and the Jedi council have misgivings about him, and right they are. But he's successfully championed by Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn, effectively played by Liam Neeson. Ewan McGregor as his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobe is good at anticipating the great Alec Guinness, but he gets a bit too emotional for a Jedi. Natalie Portman is Queen Amidala, and she's convincingly regal but not much fun. Nobody's much fun -- there's no cocky Han Solo, no feisty Princess Leia, no doofus macho innocent Luke Skywalker.

In "Star Wars", Lucas created a futuristic "American Graffiti" with jalopy jockeys and teen-age types he understood. Now that he's become Joseph Campbell, he's sunk beneath the weight of his own significance, and been seduced by the trivial side of the Force.

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