Year of Release: 1999
Director: George Lucas
Stars: Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd, Ian McDiarmid, Pernilla August, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Frank Oz, Terence Stamp, Brian Blessed, Ahmed Best, Hugh Quarshie, Oliver Ford Davies
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Synopsis & Review:
"Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace" premiered in 1999 to a barrage of expectation and of audience. The film resumed a universe that had not been touched on the big screen since Richard Marquand's "Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi" premiered in 1983. The film benefited from the advances in visual effects, namely performance capture and digital compositing. However, in what has become a trademark for the following sequels, George Lucas was unable to build a narrative that is engaging and entertaining. This film in particular falls prey of a concept that anchors itself too much on one of a video-game, with most characters having little to no motivation, and most of their interactions feeling trite and awkward. This film successfully manages to make Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor, both stupendous actors, look and feel out of place. It's a film that exhibits such technical wizardry and a universe that is unique and ripe for exploration, however the actors engagement is always less than compelling, and the supporting characters are ostensibly poorly developed. The cinematography from David Tattersall is fantastic as is the score from John Williams. A mediocre come back to an iconic series.
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