Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace 3D (1999)
Director: George Lucas
Movie review
From Time Out Online
‘George Lucas ruined my childhood!’ cried the fanboys when this ungainly, frequently idiotic prequel to the director’s game-changing ‘Star Wars’ trilogy lumbered into cinemas back in 1999. Such a reaction seems a little overemotional – but then, if someone’s memories of youth are so fragile as to be shattered by a single film, they’re probably not the most reliable cultural commentator to begin with.The story – such as it is – sees jobbing Jedi ambassadors Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) packed off to the lush planet of Naboo to break a blockade by the scheming trade federation. Little do they know that this seemingly ordinary (and spectacularly tedious) tax dispute is in fact just the cover for a dark power to start meddling in the affairs of the Galactic Republic.
The passage of time has not improved Lucas’s grand folly – and neither has the addition of an extra dimension. The dialogue is still disastrous and weirdly repetitive, the performances are still robotic and the plot is still riddled with inconsistencies. The 3D remastering is often so subtle as to be almost unnoticeable: even the podrace sequence – the heart-pounding highlight of the film – doesn’t seem to have much in the way of added depth, and the frantic pace of the action renders many elements blurry and indistinct.
What does come alive in the new print is the background detail – this was always a beautifully designed film, crammed with gorgeous costumes, sleek CG spacecraft and knowing nods to the earlier films: check out Watto’s junk shop, in which every corner is stuffed with busted robots and rusting detritus from Lucas’s Industrial Light & Magic warehouse. So while ‘The Phantom Menace’ is still a frustratingly flat experience, it’s at least a visually sumptuous one.
Author: Tom Huddleston
Time Out Online
Cast & crew
Director: George Lucas
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd full cast
Duration: 136 mins
Features
Gray's anatomy
James Gray wants to push buttons—again.
The next big thing?
Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.
Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema
So you think you can dance, comrade?
Puppet master
Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.
Socratic method
Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.
Wander woman
Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.
Oscars
Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.
What do you think?
Post your review now