Just a really strange movie

Rating: 1/10 (8 January 2020)

I'm a big fan of the original Star Wars trilogy. I think all three hold up pretty well and while I think prequels are unnecessary, they could potentially be done interestingly and provide greater context for the movies to follow.
Unfortunately, The Phantom Menace is not a good prequel nor is it a good movie. I have trouble even considering this a movie. Movies usually have plots and they have characters that change as the story progresses. The Phantom Menace has a plot, theoretically, but it is so incoherent and hard to follow this movie might as well not have had one.
If someone asked me to explain what happens in this movie I think my head would explode. I can describe moments. But the actual plot? I still don't know. It's strange because the original Star Wars trilogy is such a simple story. All three films are easy to follow, they have a main character, and the rest of the characters have these things called "personalities" which the "characters" in this movie lack.
There are really no characters in this film. There are actors exchanging dialogue on screen, but character implies personality, which every one of these planks of wood lack. The only real characters are young Anakin Skywalker and this Jar Jar creature. However, the dialogue is so awful and everything they say is so on the nose. There's this idea that Star Wars is for children. And while I always disagreed with that idea because of the maturity of the original trilogy, this movie is something I feel only children would like. And even then, they would be bored by the large amount of politics in this film.
Politics can be interesting in a sci-fi story. Star Trek deals with politics often and it usually does it well. However, because George Lucas at this point as loss touch with all of humanity and what makes us like to watch movies, the politics in this film are incredibly hard to follow and dull.
Overall, this is just a really odd movie. Nothing works. Nothing is done well or even exceptionally well. No scene has suspense because it is so hard to relate to our strange, emotion-less main characters. The protagonists are impossible to relate to. The main villain never speaks and doesn't have a personality. I legitimately cannot understand how any human being could like this movie. I think the only reason this movie is still brought up at all is because it has "Star Wars" in its name. But this film is far from the quality of the originals. Just a really dull film.