Metacritic-Rezensionen

It's up to snuff. It sustains the gee-whiz spirit of the series.

Let the killjoys squawk. Lucas has proved he has the Naboos to pull it off again. And again. And again.

It does the job just fine. That job, as director George Lucas freely admits, is quite simply to thrill the beating hearts and the inquiring minds of 12-year-old boys.

Good enough, but only just. It's got the hardware, but neither the characters, the imagination, nor the resonance one had hoped for.

It's a kiddie movie rejiggered for childish grown-ups, of whom there are enough to make it a hit. How such childishness has become a virtual secular religion is hard to imagine.

The entire film is curiously soulless, with major characters making their entrances and exits (some of which are unexpectedly final) as if they were breezing in from some other screening next door.

"Star Wars" fans deserve better.

It's a complete drag.

Computer technology may be the actual phantom menace, after all.

George Lucas does it his way in the pallid Phantom Menace. Even cultists will wish he'd hired a director and some writers.