Review: 'The Phantom Menace' is a good Episode, after all

WARNING: Portions of this review may contain spoilers. If you want to go into "The Phantom Menace" without knowing anything of its plot, you may not want to read on.

The Queen fights. The character of Queen Amidala - played by Natalie Portman in a taut, surprisingly mature turn - makes "The Phantom Menace," the first episode of George Lucas' "Star Wars" serial, worth seeing more than once. Hers is a character with real depth - far more depth than Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia from the first (or is that second) trilogy. Where Leia yelps, Amidala intones; where Fisher cracked wise with Lucas' dialogue, unsure how exactly to deliver it, Portman utters the lines with a reverence that approaches ardor. And when dialogue fails, she'll just grab a blaster and shoot up the joint. Amidala may be proud, but she's not fussy.

Few critics will recognize the strength of her performance, having approached it the wrong way - the same incorrect approach they will use on the film itself. Sure, Lucas' dialogue ain't David Mamet. It is, rather, an old Republic Films Saturday Serial shot full of adrenaline; it is, in fact, what "Star Wars" has always been. When early, lukewarm reviews of "Phantom Menace" broke, 20th Century Fox executives cried foul, claiming the film needed to be judged by its public. This marks the first and last time I'll ever agree with studio executives. "The Phantom Menace" is a pop culture film that needs to be defined by the popular taste.

And the moviegoing public should love the taste of it. Though flawed - as were the original "Star Wars" films, a caveat we tend to ignore in the face of their venerability - "The Phantom Menace" achieves Lucas' ultimate goal - it returns to the universe he created in 1977, a distant place and time with absolutely no basis in our own. It kicks open doors that were only cracked before, affording a look at the mysterious forces that more or less swept the characters of the following chapters along on pre-established paths. And it continues the story started by episodes four, five and six in an unheard-of way: by beginning it anew.

Amidala is the elected matriarch of the pastoral planet of Naboo, the flashpoint of the corrupt Trade Federation's grab for power. Though smarmy and cursed with comically broad French accents (at least, that's how they sounded), the alien heads of the Federation nevertheless manage to blockade Naboo with battleships. Two Jedi Knights - Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) - are called in to settle the matter - which they do, in the most roundabout and unpredictable of ways.

Of course, like any odyssey, "The Phantom Menace" is all about the journey. Even though we know that the young slave the Jedi meet on Tatooine, Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd) is destined to become Darth Vader someday, we follow his achievements with interest. Though we know that good will, eventually, vanquish evil, we recoil in real terror as Darth Maul (Ray Park), a Sith assassin and servant of the Dark Side of the Force, steps literally out of thin air to confront the light and stare it down. And though we can see the determination in young Amidala's face, it's still jarring when she pulls out her pistol and opens fire on her oppressors. These are the sights on the path to the "Star Wars" universe we know - and they are just as stirring as the computer-generated visuals that set this film high above all would-be otherworlds.

The familiar distractions don't fail. John Williams' score whooshes along with the action, standing amazed when something amazing happens, mourning when all is lost, rejoicing when victories are marked. Ben Burtt's sound designs test the Lucas-subsidized THX sound system to its limit. And yes, ladies and gentlemen, Yoda (Frank Oz) is still a Muppet and R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) is still a robot - no computer renderings here, just good old popular mechanics.

The only unfortunate diversions are those that remind you of the real world. The clumsy, CGI-generated Jar Jar Binks (voiced by Ahmed Best) has a rude-boy accent that could only have come from Planet Jamaica. Lloyd's performance as Skywalker, though passable, suffers too many lapses where the boy realizes he's inside the world's largest, living storybook. They take away from other ridiculous real-world elements Lucas placed in the film for color and that actually seem to settle into the narrative with little difficulty - a two-headed color commentator overlooking a "Pod Race" taken straight from an early 1960's hot rod B-movie, or a buglike junkyard owner with a gambling problem and beard stubble. Lucas' concessions to the younger audience almost take the loop out of the wittier turns of "The Phantom Menace," but stop mercifully short of doing so.

Not that the cast would allow that kind of derailment. It's a sheer joy to watch an accomplished troupe of actors - the cast also features Ian McDiarmid, Samuel L. Jackson, Pernilla August and Terrence Stamp - subverting the material, taking Lucas' sometimes narrow characters into broader focus. McGregor's Kenobi, impatient to get into a fight, bounces up and down in a manner that's pure "Trainspotting." McDiarmid's corrupt, deceptive Senator Palpatine wears a mask of blank contempt with the bluntness of a weapon. And though he's never seen, Brian Blessed's big-hearted bass tones shine through Boss Nass, the amphibious ruler of Naboo's underworld, giving the character a sly, ineffable charm one just doesn't expect from a creature that drools that much.

In the first set of movies, the human characters seemed less animated than the aliens, save Alec Guinness; this time out everyone is gifted with a real palate of colors, from angry to confused to tender to mischievous. Like the director, the players seem to have a genuine good time. There's no reason the audience shouldn't share in the fun.

This is escapist entertainment in its most pure form. Lucas should be thanked for allowing us to revisit his world - "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away," lest we forget - not chastised for not making that world closer to our own. I don't want the "Star Wars" films to be Great Cinema, with soul-searching dialogue and resonant morality. Those movies run after the serial.

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