Wow...OK, I did originally see this in the theater when it came out over a decade ago (boy do I feel old) and never did I think I would have to view it again...But, given I have a 4 year old son now I guess it was inevitable. Of course I watched the original trilogy with him before this one and I am amazed at how even he was far more enthralled by those than by this, despite all the new whiz-bang computer graphics and advances in film technology.
Though I had faintly remembered coming away from the theater being disappointed by the film, I guess over the years I had chalked it up to what many reviewers had stated--that it could not have ever lived up to myths surrounding the greatness of the original three films. What I found out was that this truly is one of the worst films for the money ever made.
Everything here is over done. It is over long (those stupid pod races go on and on and on), overly childish (how many poop jokes do we need?), terribly acted (Liam Neeson's worst roll ever and he's the BEST actor in this film), poorly written (dialogue--terrible, story--convoluted) and poorly executed. Remember how great those special effects seemed at the time? Now the computer generated characters and backgrounds look terrible as they have been passed by so much better versions.
That's the thing about computer generated stuff still. Its still improving by leaps and bounds. Put a guy in a rubber mask in 1974 and he still looks like a guy in a rubber mask in 2010, do it well and it looks really good in both periods. Computer generated graphics don't age that way. What looked good in just 1999, looks terrible in 2010. Lucas failed to realize this and these films were poor to begin with and age even worse--which can't be said of the original three...
The Phantom Menace also incorporates a theme that Avatar returns to a little more than a decade later--the evil of technology and the good of nature. On one hand you have all the evil robots and mechanically oriented bad guys. On the other hand you have the worst character ever created in the history of film (he who shall not be named) and his frog/lizard/whatever compatriots who throw little energized water balls at the enemy and are "one with nature"...gheck...
You might think after all this I would recommend against seeing this film for the first time or as a repeat viewing...on the contrary...I would HIGHLY recommend seeing this film again, just to remind you what utter crap it truly is...It takes a lot of money to make something this bad...
No comments:
Post a Comment