Inconceivable though it may seem, one of the worst movies of the 1990s returned this month to cinemas around the world.

Yet, should we really be surprised that The Phantom Menace — artistically a scarcely-breathing corpse at the time of its much ballyhooed 1999 release — should now be getting a gala 25th anniversary resuscitation? To be honest it’s a testament to the resilience of the Star Wars mystique. In spite of the unkind things done to it — of which The Phantom Menace is but one lamentable example — it trudges on