A great action adventure movie

Rating: Null/10 (2 June 2001)

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** A lot of people knock this first installment of Star Wars but I thought it was great. The problem was that people had built this film up over 16 years since Return of the Jedi, and no film could live up to those kind of expectations.
From the opening bars of the Star Wars theme I had goose bumps on my neck and for the next two hours it was like being a kid again.
The story has been unfairly critcicised for having no plot but I think that the story is quite complicated for what is really a film for children.
!PLOT SPOILERS! Also in what other childrens film do you see the main character, the hero all the way through, die. And the main bad guy Darth Sidious "the Phantom Menace", get away? I think a lot of people who are not Star Wars fans didn't realise that Senator Palpatine is Darth Sidious and the Emperor. Also it was a brave decision by George Lucas to kill off Darth Maul, too often in blockbuster movies the bad guy appears to be dead only to return in some corny and contrived way, but seeing Darth Maul cut in two reinforces that he isn't coming back. Another complaint is that Darth Maul isn't in the film enough but I disagree, the film isn't about him and isn't it better to want more of a character (as with Boba Fett in Empire and Jedi), than to overuse them unnecessarily?
The other thing people dislike is the character of Jar Jar Binks and I can understand that he isn't to everyones taste but he is there to lighten up what is essentially quite a dark story and provide humour especially for children.
!PLOT SPOILERS! The only problem I can see with The Phantom Menace is that by having Anakin Skywalker be such a good little kid it will be difficult to turn him into Darth Vader in just two films.
All in all The Phantom Menace is a fantastic movie, much better than recent blockbusters such as the highly over rated "The Matrix" and "The Mummy" It has great characters, cool lightsabers battles, fast spaceships and out of this world costumes, and is a exciting prequel to the other movies.