Phantom Menace: Fun Movie that could have been Great

In fairness, I doubt that any movie could have lived up to the unprecedented hype that heralded this one. The media gifted Lucas with more free advertising, disguised as "news," than he could have dreamed of purchasing the ordinary way. With that sort of build-up, I truly expected an earth-shattering miracle of a movie. In retrospect, I should have known better.

Don't get me wrong, Phantom is a good, rollicking, entertaining movie worthy of full-fare theater prices. But the hype promised so much more than that. The promotions intimated that the major focus of the movie would be placed on the relationship between Obiwan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker -- who would later become Darth Vader, as we all know. But, besides the fact that Anakin is barely out of short pants at the time, the entire movie deals with Skywalker's relationship to Liam Neeson's character, Qui Gon Jinn. Indeed, the first five minutes of the movie, I thought Neeson played Kenobi and his traveling companion and student was Skywalker.

I could have overlooked that. In fact, I did, as the movie progressed. But then Lucas detoured so sharply from the Star Wars plot that I began to wonder whether his intention was merely to set up the merchandise tie-ins for Phantom Menace: The Video Game. The speeder race seemed to me rather drawn-out. Oh, to be sure, once the actual race got going, it was exciting to watch. But events leading up to the race gave all signs of having been extruded, like wire, in an effort to fill running time. This is a certain sign of a weak script. A strong script will need to carefully watch the clock, and the director might find himself cutting immaterial scenes just to keep the running time down to something reasonable -- witness The Godfather, Goodfellas, Dances with Wolves, Braveheart, The Abyss, and other movies that ran long but with fine substance in their extended minutes. Contrariwise, Phantom Menace appeared to struggle just to flesh out a little more than 90 minutes, maybe.

Once the race was accomplished, things improved. The drama began to build, an entirely necessary ingredient in a space opera. Lucas even saw fit to weave some entertaining intrigue into the otherwise simplistic plot. Finally, the moment arrived: the lightsaber battle that I had so often glimpsed in previews. Here, Lucas obviously made a wise decision by hiring a choreographer with experience in martial arts and sword fights. Adrian Paul, of Highlander fame, would have been hard-pressed to turn out a better sword fight than this one. The action was crisp, daring, exhilarating, and creative. However, it was marred by Lucas' determination to shoot some of the scenes very close up. This detracted mightily from the overall effect, although it failed to ruin the fight scene as a whole. I judge such scenes according to obvious effort -- or lack thereof -- invested by the actors in learning to realistically handle their weapons. The Jedis in Phantom rank high in my book, much higher than Mark Hamill or David Prowse; clearly, the latter pair never put in the amount of effort obvious in every frame of swordplay in Phantom. It probably didn't hurt that Liam Neeson is a veteran of Hollywood sword fights, numbering Rob Roy among his distinguished credits.

Jar-Jar Binks is the character that seems to have garnered the most fame, as I see him mimicked everywhere on television -- indeed, saw such impressions months before seeing the movie. This may have tainted the experience for me, so I will only say that I found him an entertaining character with enjoyable wit.

Most disappointing, for me anyway, was the underdeveloped sub-plot of R2-D2 and C3-P0, and how they first met. To my mind, this sequence could have been milked for much more than Lucas saw fit to do. 'Threepio hardly played any role at all, to the point where he seemed almost an afterthought. As did Samuel Jackson, whose role here was surprisingly terse, considering the paycheck Lucas must have written to secure an actor of his fame. He never fought a battle, which surprised me further, as Jackson is a veteran of at least half a dozen action movies.

Liam Neeson ranks among my favorite actors, for his consistently fine performances and apparent disdain for lousy scripts. But like Jack Nicholson in Witches of Eastwick, he shows that one consummate actor cannot alone rescue a movie that treads thin ice. His performance in Phantom is pretty good, but not up to his usual caliber; perhaps the director's fault, or his own, it's hard to say. Nevertheless, his Jedi is compelling, of properly mystical countenance, and Neeson strives to ride faithfully the Jedi fable we have all come to love.

Lest the unsuspecting reader leave with the impression that I disliked this movie, let me reiterate that I enjoyed it tremendously. Truly, few movies draw me to the edge of my seat so often as Phantom managed to do. It was sheer, unadulterated fun, through and through. It contained no nudity; precious little, if any, profanity; and the violence was not the gratuitous sort found in, say, a Stephen Segal or Jean-Claude Van Damme movie. I would pay cash money to see it again. I may even buy it, so I can watch it whenever I like.

But it did not meet the relentless hype. Considering the unparalleled depth and breadth of said hype, what in the world -- any world, even one in a galaxy far, far away -- could have lived up to such promise? Ultimately, Phantom may be likened to fast food. But it's the fastest food in town.

(Thanks, Kris ;)