Should be renamed "JarJar Gone Wild"

Rating: 1/10 (13 March 2006)

The Phantom Menace was less of a Star Wars prequel and more of a playground on which to display George Lucas's new CGI toy:Jar Jar Binks. Aside from being amazingly animated, he was basically Roger Rabbit with a Jamaican accent. He received too much attention(was in at least half of the scenes in the movie), and did almost nothing useful whatsoever, unless being a total buffoon is useful.
Qui-Gon Jinn, played by Liam Neeson, was the only character who did any good acting, and when he died, so did the movie, which was already on life support. I would comment on Ewan McGregor's performance as Obi-Wan, but aside from a couple of funny lines (Have we picked up yet another pathetic lifeform?) he wasn't allowed to do much of note. Natalie Portman was terrible as Padme Amidala-if they just wanted someone to stand around in different costumes like a mannequin, they should have used an actual mannequin, not wasted one of the best young actresses around. Jake Lloyd was too happy to be a slave-he mostly ran around and said "Yippee". He was also too young: the scenes with him and Padme, where Lucas obviously tried to hint that they were going to fall in love, because of the vast age difference, made Padme seem more like a female pedophile than a politician. The Sith were almost completely pushed into the background, and did not do many particularly evil things except hide under black hoods. It was a shame, because Darth Maul had some serious potential and could have been a fantastic villain if he had not been killed off after only doing two fight scenes and saying only two lines. The Jedi were completely pushed in the background, only appearing to say that Anakin was dangerous and evil, although the only thing bad about him was his character development. If I had two words to sum this movie up, they would be "wasted potential", because Lucas had the elements he needed to create a good movie, but because he wasted so much time on Jar Jar, he forced a nearly all-star cast into the toilet. This is a perfect example for not seeing the forest (the whole movie) because of the trees(special effects like Jar Jar).