It's a Children's Movie

Rating: 6/10 (14 January 2006)

I consider The Phantom Menace to be the second worst film in the series. It's not a horrible film by any means, but you must be prepared for one particular letdown: this film doesn't seem to have been made for the aged fans of the original trilogy. Instead, it appeals mostly to small children and die-hard fans of the saga. For that, I give this film praise; it is a very decent children's movie. Granted, it's nothing up against the likes of The Secret of Nimh, The Brave Little Toaster, or even The Incredibles and other recent Pixar films, but most boys who were under the age of ten when The Phantom Menace was released thought Anakin Skywalker was nothing short of awesome.
For seasoned veterans like myself, however, the childish humor really falls short. The combination of Jake Lloyd as Anakin and Jar Jar Binks almost completely ruined it for me, and I feel as though I have to block those characters out in my mind to enjoy the film. Anakin's one-liners during the assault on the droid control ship sounded like the Ninja Turtles in the early 90s. Furthermore, between him and Jar Jar, the seemingly epic battles were won completely by accident. No such travesty existed in the original trilogy, and furthermore, it diminishes the heroism of both characters. Essentially, the only true hero of the film is Obi-Wan Kenobe, and for the entirety of the film he is mostly kept in the background as a babysitter for the queen, whose acting in this film resembles that of a crash test dummy.
My last gripes about this film are mostly visual problems. The CGI really dominates this movie. I personally found it more charming when costumes ruled Hollywood. It's just that many of the CGI stunts are so ludicrous and overexaggerated, making this more resemblant of a multi-million-dollar cartoon than a Star Wars film.
On the good side, there are many positive aspects of this film. The story, for one thing, is great for the saga. Focusing on a number of things, including Palpatine's rise to power, Obi-Wan's last days of training, Anakin's incredible skills as an engineer, and the rebirth of the Sith after a long time of peace. The dialog is even fairly decent, so long as Jar Jar, Anakin, and Queen Amidala have nothing to say.
I found Qui-Gon Jinn (sp?) to be the most likable character. In the entire prequel trilogy, in fact, he has more lines of wisdom than even Yoda (whose puppet actually looked worse in this film than it did in The Empire Strikes Back).
Darth Maul was a great villain. His mystique was what kept me interested in him--sometimes it really is better to only show the tip of the iceberg. A lot of people complain that he was underdeveloped, but, honestly, I like it much better that way for characters like him. In addition, his lightsaber battle against Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan is my favorite lightsaber battle in the entire series.
While Episode I definitely did not live up to the hype or the original trilogy, it was a decent addition to the saga. 6/10