Good but not great

Rating: 7/10 (14 February 2011)

While there was much to like here, there were some pretty thunderous flaws.
I didn't mind meeting young Annakin (although Jake Lloyd was pretty charisma-free). Jar-Jar was fairly horrific, and none of the principals (with the exception of Liam Neeson and Frank Oz) offered much commitment to their characters.
But, to me, the two main flaws were a) overkill - there was simply too much of everything, particularly on the visual side - and b) the story. Trade embargoes? Really? That's the best way to start off your epic 6 part space wars saga? Lucas adds plotting to dialogue as areas of scriptwriting which are not his strong suit.
Ian McDiarmid starts to emerge as the single strongest performance throughout the entire saga.
Subsequent addition to review:
Having just seen the 3D re-tooling of Star Wars 1, I thought I would try to approach it from the point of view of watching the saga in chronological order of the story. And it isn't good. This first episode, about trade tariffs and blockading the planet Naboo is unnecessarily dry and complicated, and I am not sure that the ultimate reason for this - shoehorning Palpatine in as Chancellor on the back of the phantom menace of the title - is all that clearly explained, especially as so much of the story is taken up with the sidetrack to Tatooine in order to bring Annakin into the story. The story itself is poor, badly written and badly told.
The performances, with exceptions, are adequate. Liam Neeson and Ian McDiarmid stand out as giving performances of power and commitment. Ewan McGregor and Sam Jackson have fun. Natalie Portman is saddled with funny wigs, makeup and voice as Queen Amidala, but gets to have some nice moments as Padme. Jake Lloyd is moderately annoying as young Annakin and his perfectly spherical head is distracting. Jar Jar Binks is incredibly well realised, and still as profoundly irritating as he was first time round. And Ray Park's Darth Maul is pretty good, too.
The visuals are fairly solid, with the exception of the battle on Naboo where the boundless green grasslands have never, to me, looked anything other than computer generated.
I'm a big fan of 3D, and I was looking forward to the 3D conversion - so much of the film was CGI in the first place that the conversion seemed to me to be likely to be relatively straightforward and, therefore, effective. But it was OK, no better, and added little to the movie.