This movie is basically the worst of the movies in the series.

Rating: 2/10 (10 June 2014)

I recently went back and watched this. I had received the boxes set of the series as a gift this past Christmas. Anyway, the gist of it is that I decided to watch them in order. I could only make it through thirty minutes of Phantom Menace. It was that bad.
So instead, I watched the last 3 movies (or 1st 3 depending on how you parse things). Meanwhile Phantom Menace languished in mediocrity in my entertainment center.
But since this is a review of that movie, let me tell you what I did. Because I couldn't stomach Jar Jar, I made my own version of the Phantom Edit. Using software, I ripped episodes 1-3 and converted them into 1 gig avi files. Then I edited them to remove every vestige of the long-tongued annoyance.
To make a long story short, it took days. But in the end, I was Jar Jar free. So I watched the first 3 movies.
Since this is a review of The Phantom Menace, I'll only be mentioning that movie. Despite de-Jar Jar'ing the movie, it still sucked. Too simplistic, too disingenuous, too contemptuous.
Yes, contemptuous. Because, in the end, I could only conclude that The Phantom Menace was a middle finger salute from George Lucas to all of the fans who made him rich. I have read several sources that say that George Lucas said that the problem fans of Star Wars had with Phantom was that it was a children's movie with childish characters that adults can't relate to. That Jar Jar Binks was aimed at kids 12 and younger.
I disagree. I have watched plenty of movies that were aimed at children, but if they were good, I enjoyed them. In that same vein, I have two nephews, who was 8 and 10 respectively when we watched the movie originally. Neither liked, nor could relate to Jar Jar. They hated him. They thought the movie was stupid.
Now these are kids who loved Episodes IV and V, and thought Episode VI was good, if you got rid of the Ewoks.
No, George Lucas gave the fans the big old middle finger, while simultaneously holding out his hand for their money. I guess there are a lot worse things in the grand scheme than money-grubbing jerks who spit on everyone around them, but to be honest, it doesn't make me detest the man any less.
At least now, the rights have been sold off to Disney. Now they are devils of a different sort, but they can make decent movies. Sometimes. Certainly can't do worse than Lucas. Nope.
This was a hard review to write as I wanted so badly to use expletives throughout, but I managed to resist in the interests of actually posting the review.