Reviewed July 28, 1999
The biggest movie of the summer of 1999, Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace , turned out to be a good flick, but it still didn't live up to its hype. The plot of the movie was too predictable to be much fun. Lucas should have released the series in the proper order if he wanted to keep viewers on the edges of their seats through each twist in the story. Instead, we are left with many excellent subplots which accomplish much the same purpose, except on a smaller scale.

Much of the hype that the media generated about the movie was for the amazing graphics and special effects. They are truly awesome in Episode One , but the computer-generated effects aren't all that much better than anything from the first three movies. The effects were already such of high quality. You can still tell that the worlds are digitally created because the character movements are not as smooth as in real life.

I give Episode One 3.5 of 5 stars.