It's Entertainment, People

Rating: 9/10 (20 May 1999)

I would agree with some of the criticisms that the Phantom Menace has received, but not all, mostly because I liked it.
I thought that the film was highly entertaining, and really that was it's point. There were a couple parts that didn't look right, which kind of reminded me of the original where there were things that looked odd. I do agree that some of the characters were hard to understand. I understood most everything, but I had to reply lines in my head after hearing them to finally get it. I thought, though, that each actor/actress did a good job of acting, just that they had some really poor lines. I mean, I think it would be very hard to properly deliver a line when your reply to "Finish this job and you can go home" is "Yippee".
I agree, also, that they needed a Space Cowboy type character. Liam and Ewan did great in their roles, but both roles were very confident, perhaps even preacher like "believe in the force" and "everything is for a reason" type roles. Even the fight scenes were kinda annoying because they had no fear. Only the end fight with Darth Maul was cool since it showed signs of struggle.
I would have liked there to be more space fighting. The space flight is what I really enjoyed most in the first trilogy. I won't spoil anything, but I would have liked to have kept those particular characters around for the next episode(s).
What this first episode really did for me was to whet my appetite for the next two. I can't stand that I have to wait around 1100 days for that...
In all, again, I was entertained so I would give it a 3 1/2 (out of 4). I would tell everyone to see it, but (agree agree agree) I don't see too many people wanting to see it several times. This should never break Titanic's record.