This is NOT a bad movie.

Rating: 8/10 (10 September 2000)

No, it is definitely not bad at all. In fact, it ties in relatively well with the rest of the trilogy, has a decent plot, and some awesome fight sequences.
That said, however, it is definitely the most flawed Star wars movie. I think the problem is that George Lucas, in writing this film, was trying to make it nice and happy and appealing to everyone.
However, he made a few mistakes along the way. For example, he believes that it was necessary to include Jar Jar because he would be "popular with the kids. The problem is that the character, squeaky voice and all, was annoying and grating to even the least cynical 10 year old. (Trust me, I have a young sister). It probably wasn't the way the character was developed as pure comic relief. It was more likely that everything about him, from the Quasi-Jamaican SQUEAKY accent, to the annoying appearance and mannerisms, to the fact that he was obviously CG all contributed to making the most annoying film character they could have POSSIBLY come up with.
Speaking of CG, there was WAY too much of it in the movie. There is a reason that the Matrix succeeded (artistically speaking, NOT financially) more than this movie.
In the Matrix, CG effects were only used when they were needed. When other means could be used, they were. This added to the realism of the movie (Well, as real as a Sci-Fi movie can be, anyway) whereas this the Phantom Menace uses CG JUST to show off in some places.
For example, when they are entering the Gungan City, I said to my friend in perfect "Bro Speak" (and I quote): "Yeah, okay, relax."
I will give this film some reprieve as it is obviously suffering from "New Hopeitis" in that it only introduces everything and more important things will take place later in the trilogy.
Like I said before, aside from these somewhat major problems, this is a pretty good movie and is highly entertaining to watch.
It gets an 8.123276457463647474764764 from me. However, I think IMDB might round it off. Oh well.