"The Phantom Menace" also benefits from strong performances from some of its main actors. Liam Neeson brings the gravitas of a powerful, wise and noble Jedi to the role of Qui-Gon Jinn. Neeson's broad shoulders carry much of the movie, and his renegade style sets the stage nicely for the type of Jedi Anakin will become later, and why the Jedi order might tolerate Anakin's roguish behavior. Ian McDiarmid is strong in his brief role as the apparantly unassuming Senator Palpatine, who engineers the downfall of the Chancellor and sees himself elected. Pernilla August plays the heavy-hearted Shmi Skywalker with grace, conveying in her performance the weariness of a life in slavery and the protectiveness and selfless love of a mother.
Some of the digital characters in the film end up providing good performances. Watto and Sebulba fill their roles in the story well. Watto holds the screen opposite Liam Neeson, and manages to convey a sense of charm despite a dastardly nature. Sebulba is a serviceable one-dimensional foil for Anakin in a role that requires only executing one dimension well. Jar Jar Binks, on the other hand, is pretty awful. He's not funny, though he's meant as comic relief. The PR line was that he was meant for children, but my kid never liked him one bit. Suffice it to say, Jar Jar is a liability to the film. The other Gungans are no better. Plenty of rants have been written on the matter, making one here not necessary.
Unfortunately, other key performances are not turned in as well as those by Neeson, McDiarmid and August. Natalie Portman is lifeless as Queen Amidala, delivering her lines awkwardly and vacantly. True, the lines she is given to read are not any good, but she makes them worse. While it has to be marked in the area of performances that aren't helpful to the film, that Anakin Skywalker doesn't work isn't really Jake Lloyd's fault. Lloyd is a kid actor who does a good job playing an innocent, if ambitious child. The fact that the role exists to play is more the problem, as George Lucas should have made Anakin at least a teenager.
Some roles wasted good actors. Foremost among these is Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ewan McGregor. Kenobi is a supporting character in this film, with little to do. Most of the good Jedi-ing is given to Neeson's Qui-Gon, leaving McGregor standing on the sidelines and walking in the older Jedi's shadow, "Yes, master"-ing his way through most of the film. Obi-Wan is one of the central characters in the saga, and should have been used better. The role of Chancellor Valorum is so brief that Terrence Stamp may as well have not been in the movie, and Samuel L. Jackson's Mace Windu is nothing more than a cameo in this film, though obviously his part is expanded greatly in Episodes II & III.
Like some roles wasted good actors, the film itself wasted a potentially interesting villian. George Lucas's production designers did a phenomenal job coming up with Darth Maul, but unfortunately the character is not well utilized. Maul is downright scary-looking, and Ray Park's acrobatics and athleticism make him a formidable opponent to the Jedi. If only he'd been established in a more threatening way in the story, he might have been a truly great villian. Instead, squandered, he ends up nothing more than a freakish thug. The underdevelopment of Darth Maul and the phantom nature of his master Darth Sidious leave "The Phantom Menace" without the type of strong, central villian that set the context for the drama of the original films.
The issue with Maul is part of an overall story structure problem the film suffers from. Unlike "Episode IV - A New Hope", which started off in the middle of action and immediately established a tangable menace, "The Phantom Menace" starts slowly and lolly-gags its way to conclusion. Entirely too long is spent at the pod race in particular. The sequence is not visually impressive enough to warrant the air time it gets. It would have been better to trim the race by a lap or two and make the movie run faster. With all of the faults of "The Phantom Menace", I could imagine it having been very good if it had undergone a well executed re-editing, cutting the running time down a bit and replacing the opening sequence with an action piece that involved Darth Maul establishing himself as a dark force to be reckoned with.
Ultimately the problem with "The Phantom Menace" ends up being that the story is not interesting enough to warrant being a full blown "Star Wars" film. It is enough to warrant a novel based on the movies, and there are plenty of those. George Lucas might have been better off making "Episode II" the first chapter, and plugging a "Clone Wars"-based movie in the middle of "Attack Of The Clones" and "Revenge Of The Sith."
"The Phantom Menace" is by no means the worst film ever made. Just the worst "Star Wars" film ever made. It has some really good stuff in it, but the bar for films in the "Star Wars" saga is very high, and it trips over that bar.
2.5/5 Stars.
--Chris Kivlehan