Pleasantly surprised

Rating: Null/10 (10 September 1999)

Caveat: I do NOT worship the "Star Wars: Trilogy". I appreciate the SUPERB special effects but I also appreciate a well thought out story-line, good dialog and acting, which I felt were sorely lacking in Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back.
I waited 6 weeks before seeing the Phantom Menace and was expecting to react the same way I react to a new James Bond movie; all that money and no movie!
Well, I was shocked. This is not only a very good sci-fi movie but a damn good movie in general.

Good points:
1] The movie moves the characters from local to local for good reasons.
2] the direction is well above average, with Liam Neeson turning in a superb performance (he has an amazing presence which at the same time doesn't keep telling you, "Hey, isn't that guy Liam Neeson?").
3] The dialog goes well above, "We are conquering your planet because our guns are bigger than yours".
Star Wars fans complain about Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman) being so "proper" compared to Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher); that's like comparing Captain Kirk (William Shatner) to Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart). In real life, Princess Leia would be a COMPLETE anomaly in regards to the way a princess, so to speak (Oh man, I'm actually taking this nonsense seriously!), would behave.
The movie does have several weak points:
1] The absolute funniest moment in the movie follows when Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) realize they are about to be ambushed in the conference room. There's a sequence where they are seen, from a distance, jumping from a hole in the wall into a large warehouse area. It looks like two jelly beans being abruptly plopped. I mentioned this to several hard-core Star Wars fans who, in retrospect, remembered the scene, and went into convulsions laughing.
2] Jar Jar Binks is a one dimensional, and very NOT funny, joke, and completely unnecessary (I really didn't want to have to translate his broken English while I'm trying to sit back and enjoy a movie).
3] There's way too much time spent on Anakin Skywalker's home planet (but then George Lucas would have had to cut at least 40 minutes out of the movie).
4] Samuel L. Jackson's acting is completely embarrassing (really, look at him staring blankly into the camera during the Jedi council meetings). Samuel L. Jackson is quoted in People as begging George Lucas to cast in him in the Phantom Menace; I guess by the time the cameras started filming, George Lucas was too embarrassed to tell him how bad his acting was and that he should leave while he's ahead of himself.
5] The special effects are VISUALLY impressive but, overall, not IMAGINATIVE. There's no object morphing that made me say, "Wow, I wouldn't have thought of that!". One possible exception is the Federation Council room consisting of floating platforms.
The "Star Wars Myth" aside, I enjoyed this movie. In MY opinion, a movie has to stand it's own merits, and not be held up to a "cult following" status.