- Studio: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
- Release Date: May 19, 1999
- Critic Score
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91Phantom may not be the best entry in the series, but it's the most technically accomplished, and it makes you as hungry for the next film as you've been for this one.
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88An astonishing achievement in imaginative filmmaking.
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88A highly entertaining and visually breathtaking movie, capable at times of rocking and delighting you.
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Forget the hype, and the backlash. The Phantom Menace is captivating.
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88Not a masterpiece, but it's an example of how imagination, craftsmanship, and technological bravura can fashion superior entertainment out of something that is far from flawless.
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83Avoid the hype, just go enjoy the movie
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80A breathless, exciting family movie with a couple of truly memorable sequences, and just enough in the way of story and character to keep the franchise going for another 20 years.
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It's up to snuff. It sustains the gee-whiz spirit of the series.
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75The computer-driven effects are impressive, but the adventure is hampered by a flat screenplay, dull acting, and just a hint as to why the dark side of the Force will eventually transform cute little Anakin into the evil Darth Vader.
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75Let the killjoys squawk. Lucas has proved he has the Naboos to pull it off again. And again. And again.
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70Despite a shaky start and the presence of questionable elements throughout, by the time it arrives at its finale -- which copies Return Of The Jedi's triple-climax structure -- The Phantom Menace has won its place alongside the original Star Wars trilogy.
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67Fails to recapture the elemental magic of Star Wars, and that, ironically, is because it represents the coarse culmination of the original film's adrenaline aesthetic.
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63In the end, Phantom needed more human and less digital scale. The magic of "Star Wars" lay in Lucas' ability to play the human comedy in a fantastic future. With Phantom, he has brought the series to the brink of total artificiality, the future as a video game.
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63Good enough, but only just. It's got the hardware, but neither the characters, the imagination, nor the resonance one had hoped for.
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63It does the job just fine. That job, as director George Lucas freely admits, is quite simply to thrill the beating hearts and the inquiring minds of 12-year-old boys.
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60It's a kiddie movie rejiggered for childish grown-ups, of whom there are enough to make it a hit. How such childishness has become a virtual secular religion is hard to imagine.
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60What I mean is that to watch The Phantom Menace as a lifelong "Star Wars" fan is to engage in constant, fragile negotiations between a cherished familiarity and the shock of the new.
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60I warn you, I'm gonna continue whining about the movie. Just keep in mind that I liked it.
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60Phantom is easily consumable eye candy, but it contains no nutrients for the heart or mind.
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60Not at all bad for a toy commercial.
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50In special effects, Lucas has moved a galaxy beyond. In energy, not yet.
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50The entire film is curiously soulless, with major characters making their entrances and exits (some of which are unexpectedly final) as if they were breezing in from some other screening next door.
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50"Star Wars" fans deserve better.
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50It earns an "Incomplete'' -- because we won't know the results until we see Lucas' next chapter.
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50While the new film is certainly serviceable, it's noticeably lacking in warmth and humor, and though its visual strengths are real and considerable, from a dramatic point of view it's ponderous and plodding.
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40Story. Character. They used to mean something to George Lucas.
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40All the state-of-the-art technology in the world is no help to an actor saddled with Lucas's tinny dialogue.
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40It is likely to disappoint more people than creator George Lucas would have liked.
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40The Empire strikes out.
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40Not only is it just a movie, it's just a ho-hum movie.
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30It's a complete drag.
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30Computer technology may be the actual phantom menace, after all.
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20The Phantom Menace is simply a billboard for itself. Anyone who sees it will be experiencing it for the second time. The hype was not about the movie, the hype was the movie.
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20This ain't no movie. It's a very long, very tedious infomercial for Phantom Menace action figures, on sale now at a Target or Toys "R" Us near you.
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20George Lucas does it his way in the pallid Phantom Menace. Even cultists will wish he'd hired a director and some writers.
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Feb 5, 20120It's difficult to discern precisely where this all went wrong, and even more difficult to speculate about possible improvements.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 51 out of 91
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Mixed: 17 out of 91
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Negative: 23 out of 91
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VincentV.3
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L.M.9