Word: phantoms
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Fruit of Islam, eyed you through four separate checkpoints. Inside the theater, an official requested that audience members turn in anyone who might be camcording the event. George Lucas' Star Wars films may celebrate the spirit of communal rebellion, but the first critics' screening of Episode 1: The Phantom Menace in New York City last week had a sulfurous scent of the Empire about...
...right. We know that critics aren't human. And those rabid fans who sneaked into screenings last week, then peppered the Internet with their indifference, are not Kevin and Katelyn Moviegoer. But the early murmur of unrest dented The Phantom Menace's doctrine of infallibility. Recall that last year's highly hyped, sure-hit fantasy adventure--Godzilla--was out-grossed at the North American box office by such modestly budgeted frippery as There's Something About Mary, The Waterboy and Rush Hour...
Somewhere beyond the critics' dispassion and the cultists' disappointment lies the likely response of the multiplex masses when the film opens May 19. As one woman said upon leaving the screening, "What do you want for $9?" What you get in The Phantom Menace is a panoramic entertainment with several terrific set pieces of action, stalwart acting from the Brits (and some very raw work by the kids), a precise, luscious visual design, a multilevel climactic battle and a funeral pyre that echo Return of the Jedi, and a triumphal coda from the first Star Wars film (1977). All that...
...weeks, or which inspired international fans to fly to the United States next week just so that they can see it before it opens abroad in July, the excitement in the air is contagious. My only hope is that all the hype has not constructed a reputation for "The Phantom Menace" that it cannot possibly live up to. The trilogy wasn't great because it was popular or because it made a lot of money; ticket sales could make "Titanic" the highest grossing movie of all time, and that still wouldn't endow the film with any sort of "greatness...
...trash disposal with that ugly serpent thing, the nail-biting encounter between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan, that adrenaline rush you get during the sequence where Luke successfully blows up the Death Star. And while I didn't think I'd be too excited about the release of "The Phantom Menace"--I figured I could see it sometime in August, when the shows are no longer sold out--it pleased me more than I will say to find out that due to some tricky Moviephone tactics by the guys across the hall, (the same ones who took scissors...