Review #1,192: 'Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace' (1999)

There is no day more suitable to re-visit George Lucas' beloved Star Wars franchise than Star Wars Day itself: May 4th. One of the most difficult (and entirely trivial) questions asked by the fans about to settle down for a marathon is where to start? Do you marvel at the glory of the original trilogy -despite the Ewok-inspired hiccup of Episode VI - before moving onto the prequels, or is it best to get the much-criticised second trilogy out of the way first? I chose the second option, and not only because Episodes 1-3 are certainly bad, but because I had yet to bring myself to watch any of them for a second time since sitting uncomfortably in the cinema back in 1999, 2002 and 2005. I remember leaving the theatre after seeing The Phantom Menace massively disappointed but convincing myself it had enough merit to qualify as a 'good' movie. Over the years I have grown to hate it as a soulless special effects extravaganza, so is it quite the spirit-crushing experience I remember it to be? Not quite.

It's quite hard to ascertain just who George Lucas was aiming The Phantom Menace at. It's certainly a childish film stuffed to the gills with physical comedy and silly voices, and dialogue so expository and simplistic that it would fail to convince anyone with a mental age north of 12. But then the action plays out over a confusing and plain boring plot revolving around a trade dispute. The opening crawl attempts to explain matters before introducing a wide-range of planets, characters and species, and throwing its two heroes, Jedi Knights Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), into the thick of the action. I was quickly lost and left scratching my head, but everything was certainly pretty to look at. It was at this point I realised that Lucas had designed a film to be admired solely from a visual standpoint, and dialogue, characterisation and storytelling had been thrown out of the window. The planet and character designs are beautiful, and I had forgotten just how splendid they are to gaze upon when backed by John Williams' iconic score.

Away from the lightsaber duels and vast landscapes, The Phantom Menace is excruciatingly dull, failing to make conversations about blockades and the Senate remotely interesting, while shoe-horning in references to the originals with little regard for coherency. Neeson and McGregor are both perfectly charming in their roles, even when faced with some truly cringe-inducing dialogue and being forced to converse with a special effect that the actor's eyes fail to meet. The same cannot be said, however, for Natalie Portman and Jake Lloyd. As Queen Amidala, the ruler of Naboo the Jedis are sent to rescue, Portman delivers her lines with a dead-eyed indifference akin to Hayden Christensen's performance in the next two films, something she was criticised for in the Thor movies. Lloyd is incredibly wooden as the young Anakin Skywalker, an annoying pug-faced all-American boy with a fondness for yelling "Yipee!" (what were you thinking George?).

And of course, worst of all, there is the character now cemented as the most loathed in cinema history, Jar Jar Binks (played by Ahmed Best). He has far more screen-time than I remembered, and is always on hand to suck any credibility out of a potentially cool moment. The only scene he doesn't completely ruin is the pod race, during which Anakin races to win a bet that will see him freed from slavery and placed into the safe hands of the Jedis. Even Jar Jar's fart joke doesn't get in the way of what is an exciting and visually spectacular set-piece, which still holds up 18 years later. Lucas also delivers during the one lightsaber duel of the prequel trilogy that doesn't descend into CGI overkill, which pits the two heroes against Darth Maul (Ray Park), arguably one of Lucas' coolest creations. It's beautifully choreographed and backed by an operatic score, and serves as a frustrating reminder of how good this could have been had Lucas not been so pre-occupied with daft humour and a convoluted plot.


Directed by: George Lucas
Starring: Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd, Ian McDiarmid, Ahmed Best, Hugh Quarshie, Terence Stamp
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #941: 'Theorem' (1968)

The bourgeoisie have long been a target for many of the great European film-makers. They were an object of fascination and humour for Luis Bunuel and were often portrayed as outwardly repulsive by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Jean-Luc Godard. In Theorem, Pier Paolo Pasolini ponders whether they are beyond hope and redemption, so far removed from our society that they are now of a different species altogether. The film begins outside of a factory, where the workers gather outside trying to understand why the owner has fled, leaving the entire company in the hands of its employees. They seem angry while a news reporter tries to comprehend the situation.

In an upper-class Milan suburb, a wealthy family are informed of the imminent arrival of a stranger by a enthusiastic postman. The man, known only as the Visitor (Terence Stamp), suddenly appears at their home seemingly without reason, and immediately begins to affect the family and their maid. He stops the maid (Laura Betti) from committing suicide, soothes the son (Andres Jose Cruz Soblette) of his anxieties, eases the fears of the opposite sex of the daughter (Anne Wiazemsky), seduces the sexually repressed mother (Silvana Mangano), and nurses the seriously ill father (Massimo Girotti) back to health. He vanishes as quickly as he appeared, leaving his subjects in various states of bewilderment and enlightenment.

Is the man God, the devil, or both? Ultimately, this question doesn't really matter. It's clear that the Stranger is a divine presence, but it's the effect he has on the unwitting family that is the most fascinating. The maid, a humble woman of low birth, returns to her village and is worshipped as a saint, and even appears to levitate at one point. The bourgeoisie family, however, start to slowly implode, climaxing with the father stripping himself naked and wandering into a desolate land. The Visitor seems to unlock their potential, only they - the maid aside - are unable to handle such divinity brought to them on a human level. The final scene includes a scream that may be ecstasy or pure terror, but Theorem doesn't make it that easy to unravel. This is a complex and fascinating work by one of the Italian masters, and one that will have you trying to pull apart its themes days after you have watched it.


Directed by: Pier Paolo Pasolini
Starring: Silvana Mangano, Terence Stamp, Massimo Girotti, Anne Wiazemsky
Country: Italy

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #219: 'Spirits of the Dead' (1968)

Also known as Histoires Extraordinaires, this film combines three short stories by Edgar Allen Poe, and has each segment directed by a different European director. The first, entitled Metzengerstein, is directed by the man that helmed Barbarella (1968), Roger Vadim. It tells the story of a beautiful yet debauched countess Federica (Jane Fonda) who falls in love with her family rival, Baron Wilhelm (Peter Fonda - bit weird, them being real-life brother and sister), who frees her leg from a trap in the woods. After he rejects her, she orders the burning of one of his villages, and the Baron is killed when attempting a rescue of one of his horses. The horse is taken in by Federica, who becomes obsessed with it once she notices its resemblance to the one painted on a damaged tapestry.

The second story, William Wilson, is directed by French film-maker Louis Malle. It tells a familiar doppelgänger story of the wicked William Wilson (Alain Delon) who is also interrupted by his 'better half' who shares his name and his appearance, but none of his evil ways. After winning a card game against Giuseppina (Brigitte Bardot) through repeatedly cheating, his other half exposes him, and the two face a duel. The third, directed by Federico Fellini and entitled Toby Dammit, follows alcoholic Shakesperean actor Toby Dammit (Terence Stamp) who is brought to Rome to star in an adaptation of the story of Christ, re-imagined as a western. Haunted by visions of a blonde girl who has lost her ball, he goes on a drunken ride through Rome in a Ferrari.

The biggest problem with this film is the variations of quality in the different episodes. Vadim's opener is a pretty poor effort, with a strange storyline focusing on a woman's obsession with a horse. It seems to be nothing more than an excuse to get Jane Fonda into some skimpy medieval outfits. That is all well and good (it was one of the key reasons why I loved Barbarella!) but it's a silly story and a waste of some beautiful cinematography. Malle's second story is a big improvement, but it is clear that his heart is not really in it. Apparently he agreed to take on the job in order to raise money for Murmur of the Heart (1971), and compromised to make the film more accessible to mainstream audiences. But the eroticism of the card game, and the strange atmosphere that is evident throughout make it an enjoyable 40 minutes.

Fellini's final segment is very much the director's own vision. It is so far gone from anything resembling Poe's original vision, it could be easily called Fellini's own. Thematically similar to most of his key works, Terence Stamp's crumbling lead character is the main focus, and his disintegrating sanity is laid out on the screen with a collection of flashing images, bizarre characters, and unconventional camerawork. It is also an attack on celebrity, as the characters that Dammit comes across don't react or flinch at his increasingly strange and unpredictable behaviour. It's a shame that Fellini is restricted to a 40 minute portion of a 2-hour film, as I would have quite happily watched Toby Dammit as a full-length feature. An enjoyable, if unspectacular overall film, with the stories getting notably better as the film goes on.


Directed by: Federico Fellini, Louis Malle, Roger Vadim
Starring: Jane Fonda, Alain Delon, Terence Stamp, Brigitte Bardot, Peter Fonda
Country: France/Italy

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #181: 'The Adjustment Bureau' (2011)

On the night of a failed senatorial bid by David Norris (Matt Damon), he meets the mischievous and beautiful Elise (Emily Blunt) in a bathroom whilst rehearsing his losing speech. They instantly share a connection before kissing, and Norris leaves her feeling inspired, and makes a landmark speech that will put him into pole position for the next election. The two happen to meet again on a bus, and again the spark is re-ignited. Yet Norris is being tracked by mysterious men in hats who seem to be controlling fate and keeping everything in line with 'the plan' of the big man upstairs, and the couple being together seems to go against this plan. Determined not to lose who he thinks is his true love, Norris defies the suited men, and finds himself watched and chased at every turn.

Adapted from a short story by Philip K. Dick, The Adjustment Bureau is a pretty solid idea that is confidently played out, but seems thinly spread out over the course of a feature-length running time. The idea that our fate is being tampered with to keep things 'on course', and that our fate is out of our own hands is something that was done much better in 1999's The Matrix. This film, however, focuses less on the sci-fi aspects and more on the idea of 'true love', as Damon's David Norris is convinced that if something feels so comfortable and right, then it simply must be how things should be. John Slattery and Terence Stamp's suited agents are compelled to feel otherwise, although they don't know why.

If the romantic angle seems all a bit soppy, it's actually more convincingly done than the science fiction. Damon, although not the greatest actor in the world, is certainly likeable as always, but it is Emily Blunt that comes out of the film most impressively. Her sweetness and laid-back quirks combined with her natural beauty makes for a love interest worth caring for, and you can understand the lengths that David goes to be with her. The magic hats, doors leading to anywhere, time freezing and fate maps are certainly quite interesting, but are so casually executed that often just seem silly, although these shady characters are played well by The Hurt Locker's (2008) Anthony Mackie, the ever-reliable Terence Stamp, and John Slattery, who I'm a big fan of from TV's Mad Men.

After 90 minutes of romance and the odd foot chase, I was expecting a thrilling climax that would perhaps throw in the odd surprise or two as well. But what I experienced was a half-arsed effort that rarely got the pulse racing, and a final scene that could be easily described as cop-out. It almost rendered everything I had seen prior to it pointless. However, this is still an enjoyable film with likeable performances all round, and an intriguing idea at its heart, but very far from the best Dick adaptation.


Directed by: George Nolfi
Starring: Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Anthony Mackie, John Slattery, Terence Stamp
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie