Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace

Time Out says
If Lucas's brief '70s directorial career saw him regress further into immaturity at each step, it's hardly surprising that after a 22-year gestation his return to the fray should prove both so inanely childish and so thoroughly unskilled, however saturated with state-of-the-art special effects. What you don't expect is just how dramatically drab and impenetrable it proves: right from the opening title scroll, the film grinds its way from nonsensical plot exposition to anti-climactic finale through vast stretches of intergalactic tedium. The space-set pastichess of old-time childhood favourites - war films, underwater adventures, swashbucklers, Harryhausen-modelled Greek myths (McGregor's performance is straight out of a Gerry Anderson cartoon) - are familiar from the earlier films (as is the spiritual mumbo-jumbo), but the absolute dearth of human reference in Lucas's entirely imaginary universe must be almost unprecedented. With much of the action and most of the intrigue taking place off-screen (where are the baddies?), the menace's phantom nature at least seems clear: this is just a crude curtain-raiser of Episode II. Charmless, sexless, passionless and robot-humoured, it's preposterously uninvolving.
Details
Release details
Release date:
Friday February 10 2012
Duration:
132 mins
Cast and crew
Director:
George Lucas
Screenwriter:
George Lucas
Cast:
Natalie Portman
Liam Neeson
Brian Blessed
Ahmed Best
Pernilla August
Hugh Quarshie
Franz Oz
Ian McDiarmid
Terence Stamp
Celia Imrie
Anthony Daniels
Samuel L Jackson
Jake Lloyd
Ewan McGregor
Kenny Baker
Oliver Ford Davies
Liam Neeson
Brian Blessed
Ahmed Best
Pernilla August
Hugh Quarshie
Franz Oz
Ian McDiarmid
Terence Stamp
Celia Imrie
Anthony Daniels
Samuel L Jackson
Jake Lloyd
Ewan McGregor
Kenny Baker
Oliver Ford Davies