Review of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) by Tcurran2 — 23 Dec 2017

The film that is now synonymous with abject failure, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, is a monumental misstep from writer/director George Lucas. Though it possesses a great deal of visual imagination, Lucas's once epic space opera franchise is reduced to a complicated mess of a plot of taxation and trade federations.

Devoid of any interesting characters, the only respite from this plodding affair comes in a final battle sequence between the horned villain Darth Maul (Ray Park), and our protagonists; Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson).

This sequence is also muddled, as Lucas cuts to three other events happening simultaneously, creating a tonally jarring climax whose execution even if perfect, could not have saved this film.