On the whole, worse than the worst reports

Rating: 4/10 (8 June 1999)

A standard critical comment is, "The special effects were fine; but the script ..." Well, the special effects weren't fine. They were an embarrassing failure. They were never as convincing as those of the first two movies (and, on the whole, they fell short of the third as well). Very little looks or feels or moves as if it were solid. Lucas gets around this problem by switching camera angles at random so as to never let us get a clear view of anything. It must have worked. Legions of fans were willing to walk out of cinemas saying dutifully how good the special effects were; and those who disliked the film as a whole found other bones of contention and so were willing to concede the point.
Jar Jar isn't the only thing wrong with "The Phantom Menace", but he's illustrative of almost everything wrong. He follows the central characters around like a mosquito but usually has no particular reason for being on screen. His motivations are obscure. He looks so phoney you wouldn't believe even when he stands still: and the more he moves, the phonier he looks. His dialogue is horrible - but so is everyone else's.
Incompetence is the verdict one must carry away from this film - a strange thing, given the number of manifestly competent people who worked on it. I am by no means willing to write off episodes 2 and 3. But we must now write off episode 1. The pretence that this is anything other than a turkey-shaped blot on the Star Wars series, must stop.