It’s been forever since I’ve watched it start to finish. While I do think it gets too much hate sometimes, I can say that it’s pretty objectively not a great movie.

But man oh man, Natalie Portman turns in one of the worst actor/actress performances in film history in this movie. And critics often say that it’s due to the dialogue, but that’s complete bullshite IMO. Because everyone else in the movie is speaking the same shitty dialogue, and none of them come even close to how bad she is. Not even Jake Loyd. And several even turn in decent performances despite what they were given (Neeson, McGregor, for example). But Portman is just so wooden. Every line of her dialogue sounds exactly the same...same pace, same tone, etc. Even her facial expression never changes to show any sort of emotion. None.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying she’s a terrible actress, because clearly she got better (and won an Oscar right?). But in this movie she is legit awful.

I also forgot how much this movie overly relied on CGI. It’s noticeable and it’s bad. And while some of the CGI looks okay (like Yoda for example), it just feels like they are standing around trading lines in front of green screens (and that feeling is far worse in AotC).

My biggest gripe may be that the pod race is such a giant waste of time. That’s honestly one of the reasons I wanted to rewatch this, and it stands out how much time is wasted there. All to have Anakin end up in Quigon’s care and show that he has some Jedi characteristics. In a two hour and 15 minute movie we spend like an hour or more on this race and things surrounding it. Just feels like Lucas wanted this scene and wanted it in there no matter how long it took from the run time. And I didn’t hate the race scene (even though it’s quite ridiculous at times), just the time spent on it. Felt like they could’ve cut it in half and still gotten the points across and used more time in other spots.

I do really like the intro to the movie, the first act or so. I don’t know why but them traveling through the planet still resonates with me and feels cool. And even setting up them meeting Anakin feels okay. I just hate how much time is wasted after that.

And the last 20 minutes or so feels like vintage Star Wars. And the Darth Maul scenes are just fantastic and save the movie honestly. I never was a huge SW nerd but I remember watching this in theaters and losing my shite when he broke out the dual-sided lightsaber. That fight is just cool and awesome.

And the soundtrack is pretty damn solid IMO.

Anyway, not a great movie but pretty entertaining in parts and even underrated in others. And it will always have brownie points with a lot of people for simply bringing SW back into the mix again. I’m sure this will get downvoted since I am saying positive things about the prequels and that’s forbidden.

But I have always liked this one more than most I guess.

Does anybody else out there actually like this movie like I do?

This post was edited on 5/2/21 at 11:42 am