Philip French 

Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace 3D – review

It will take more than 3D to save this lumbering Stars Wars prequel, writes Philip French
  
  

star wars
Liam Neeson, Jake Lloyd and Ewan McGregor in Star Wars: Episode l – The Phantom Menace 3D. Photograph: Keith Hamshere/AFP Photograph: Keith Hamshere/AFP

Now enhanced, if that is the word, by 3D, this film originally appeared in 1999, two decades after the first (and best) Stars Wars picture and is in reality the first of three laboured prequels. A prequel doesn't introduce things or people, it presumes we already know the things and the people and leans heavily on the audience noting that Jedi knight Ewan McGregor will later become the wise Alec Guinness, and that the sweet-natured 10-year-old genius Anakin Skywalker will grow up to be the villainous Darth Vader. It's cinematic junk food, the pernicious effect of which had already set in long before this film came out.

 

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