Not excellent but still good.

Rating: 9/10 (15 September 1999)

Could this movie be better? YES! Is it a bad-crap movie? NO!
GOOD POINTS:
-The pod race (except the two-headed guy).
-The menage-a-trois sabre-laser duel (Wow!) and the double sided sabre-laser.
-Costume design (specially Queen Amidala's dresses).
-The John Williams' "Duel of Fates" theme.
-The covetous Watto character (I want more toydarians!!).
-The impressive FX.
-The Senate sequence (very original the floating Senators' platforms).
-Darth Maul (though too few used).
-The subaquatic Otoh Gunga city (cool!) and the travel across the core of planet Naboo (it'd been better if Jar Jar has been shut).
-Coruscant skyscrapers and Naboo Palace (Wow!)
-The superb acting of Ian McDiarmid as Senator Palpatine/Darth Sidious. I think he will be a myth. His subtle and fake diplomacy is fine!.
-Liam Neeson: Not superb but fine. Correct performance of Panaka and Queen Amidala.
Now, the BAD POINTS:
-The minichlorians fool idea. (Can anybody inject them and to be a Jedi??? What happens if a Jedi transfers blood to somebody??? May the minichlorians reproduce themselves in a different person and convert him in a Force Sensitive guy????).
-Pernilla "stone-face" August. She says goodbye to her little and loved boy... without any tear?? Unbelievable.
-Gungan's language. It would be better if they had spoken more normal (like Yoda) or if they hadn't spoken Basic (Jabba or Ewok style). Can you believe when in the middle of the droid battle, with no human present, Jar Jar spokes the human language with the other Gungans???
-Obi-Wan's poor role: I can forgive this as he will be more important in Episodes II and III.
-Samuel L. Jackson movement eyes in the Jedi Council. It seems like he would be in REM sleeping phase but with "open (too) wide eyes" :)). At least, he's better at the end of the film when he's talking with Yoda.
-C3PO: What stupid lines he has! ("Jar Jar is a very strange creature"). In my opinion even Jar Jar has better lines (a little) than him. An what about C3PO being made by Anakin? Vader was Luke's father. OK. Leias was Luke's sister. Hmmmmm. And NOW C3PO was the toy of Luke's father?????? So what will be the next? Maybe Chewie was the result of an experiment about hair performed by Luke's great grandmother with a hamster??? Buhhhh!!! C3PO appearance is forced and completely unneeded. About Artoo, well, as he doesn't talk can be tolerated.
-Jar Jar: though is not good, I think it's not so bad as everybody says.
-Gungans: Ewoks II with hypertrophied ears and no fur. Why, George??? Do you remember the Coways from the excellent Alan Dean Foster's "Mind's eye" (an alternative Star Wars story)??? They had been powerful natives and a lot more credible as warriors!
-Tatooine: a planet where happens almost everything in this Galaxy. Don't you remember when Luke says in Star Wars that "if there is a center of the Universe, Tatooine is the planet fartest away from it" ? More originality, please!
-Jake Lloyd: He's not the worst but he's not the best neither. Maybe the blame is in his "Yeepi!!" lines...
-The script: very poor! Except Palpatine/Sidious lines is as dry as Tatooine. In The Empire Strikes Back there were much better jokes than in this one.
IN FACT, this film could be called Return of the Jedi II because:

1) A (princess/queen) is captured at the start by an alien creature (Jabba/Rune Haako).
2) Humans need the help of a native army (Ewoks/Gungans) to defeat a higher technology army (droids/imperial soldiers).
3) Three Jedis fight in a room with a will (Emperor, Vader, Luke / Darth Maul, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon) and two of them die while there is a ground battle (in a forest/prairie) in the planet below of a big spaceship fortress (Death Star/Droid Control Ship) that is finally destroyed.
4) Tatooine again (and again, and again...)

IN CONCLUSION, I give it 8.25 / 10 points.
To compare: A New Hope - 9
The Empire Strikes Back -10 (or more)
Return of the Jedi - 8.5 (despite of Ewoks)
Please, George: Let Irvin Kershner and/or Lawrence Kasdan be the director/s of Episodes II and III! Center movies more in characters and less in muppets and/or FX!