The Phantom Menace has great visuals and is otherwise a passable and mediocre movie with no standout scenes but also not terrible

Rating: 5/10 (18 September 2019)

For all the hate surrounding The Phantom Menace, it's a completely fine (if wholly unremarkable) film. The only element that stood out was the visuals - the underwater world, the pod race, and the light saber battle all looked great. The movie was more of a world building film than anything else, which certainly limits its upside as it didn't have a chance to be fresh and revolutionary, but it's completely competent in that world building mode. Learning about the politics both of the Federation and the Jedi council were interesting and well done, and meeting a young Anakin was cool. Many of the characters were flat - particularly the Queen, who looked like she was directed to be as wooden and lacking in personality as possible. The plot was fine but didn't hold significant intrigue, and while the climactic light saber battle was great to look at, the stakes didn't feel serious. It has plenty of flaws, but particularly with it feeling more like world building than plot development, none of them felt fatal. By no means is it a memorable or great movie, but it's also not a dissatisfying one.