Not as deep as the prior 3, but still a heck of a wild ride

Rating: 8/10 (28 June 1999)

NO, Episode 1 will not be the cultural phenomenon of the original trilogy, but ,on its own merits, it is a fine action picture with some of the best fx ever put on film. Jar Jar was not as bad as I was led to believe and Darth Maul was awesome. The lack of development of the Darth Maul character is in fact my biggest criticism of the movie. There was an opportunity to make him an all-time great villain, like Vader, but this was impossible because his role was limited only to action sequences. Still an 8 out of 10.