Word: phantoms
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Just kidding on that last one. But I did have tickets to The Phantom Menace for opening...
...better than "Jedi" but no "Empire," and in a different category altogether than the dreadfully scripted, poorly acted and infinitely enjoyable "Star Wars." Critics range from "crap" (The New Yorker's Anthony Lane) to a wan "up to snuff" (the Times' Janet Maslin). No matter: "Episode 1: The Phantom Menace" is here, having opened in theaters on Wednesday morning at 12:01 a.m. And with pre-sold-out, round-the-clock showings in every theater from here to Tatooine -- and an estimated 2.2 million people playing "Wookie Hooky" from work Wednesday -- no earthly force (sorry, Force) can keep it from...
...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...
...always jealous of people who have true passion. Jealous here mostly means "frightened." So, when I found out there were people at about 100 theaters around the U.S. who have already been waiting in line for weeks to buy tickets for Episode 1--The Phantom Menace, I had to meet them. Weren't they already as sick of the movie as I was? Did they not know there was a Star Wars cookbook out that had a recipe for "Boba Fett-uccine"? How could they listen to George Lucas tell yet another interviewer that although we have progressed technologically...