An utterly disappointing movie. It makes me sad to think about it.

Rating: 5/10 (28 May 1999)

All of the things that made the Star Wars movies the phenomena that they are seem to be absent from this movie: A story that involves heroes pursuing goals and learning and growing as they try to acchieve them; Well-drawn characters that have honest relationships to one another and learn from each other; And most importantly, Magic: the great unexplainable force that surrounded and binded these movies together, that helped us to become completely enchanted by Luke's quest to become a Jedi. These things are not in The Phantom Menace and I honestly don't think Lucas realizes it.
Lucas has created a film that moves so quickly we don't have time to connect to the characters. There are no simple, quiet moments with characters together or alone--like Luke watching the suns set on Tatooine or the moments between Luke and Yoda or Han and Leia in Empire--it's just a quick moving video game, as if Lucas doesn't trust his actors to work simply in a honest human scene without gadgets or effects. The characters define themselves only by simple speeches, not by actions as is the case in all classic stories (including ALL 3 of the first films). As a result we do not care about these characters (which we did almost immediately in the first film) and because of that, with the exception of the final dual, there is no real suspense.
I didn't go in with very high expectations, I just wanted him to deliver a good story and sustain the spirit of the original films. But George is in love with his moviemaking techno-gadgets now. For all of our sakes, I can only hope he falls back in love with Joseph Campbell and good dramatic storytelling next time around.