Not bad. Gungans tie with the Ewoks for most annoying toy-line though.

Rating: 7/10 (8 October 2002)

What can you say about episode 1 that has not been said before? Yes, we all hate Jar Jar. Yes, we would like to pistol whip Anakin. And yes, we all wondered how the hell a ten year old boy would manage to sort out Amidala to produce Luke and Leia.
It is so difficult for me to give an opinion on the Phantom Menace. On the one hand, the fanboy in me wants to say Of course its brilliant. Its Star Wars!'. But the realist in me watches parts of it and thinks god that was lame'. Its like the cartoon devil and angel on your shoulder. I really wanted to like it. I watched it at the cinema and liked it. I walked out of the cinema still liking it. And for a few days after that I told all my friends how much I liked it. But slowly things started to drift in. Obi Wan sounded like a gay butler'. Anakin was utterly terrible'. WTF is a midi-chlorian?'. And so on. But its Star Wars' I kept telling myself. Over and Over.
Now the angel and devil (or realist and fanboy) are, pretty much, at a stalemate. Yes large parts of it were horrible and very merchandisey. I am thinking of taking a court order out to prevent Lucas from directing Episode III. Some of the dialogue was terrible and the less said about the gungans the better. But on the other hand, it was great to see a fully trained Jedi in action (I nearly wet myself when they ran off quickly), Qui-Gon and Darth Maul were superb (although the death of maul was a waste and his lack of screen time was criminal) , the scenery and special effects were superb. And the story, for the most part, was pretty good. I liked the idea of the intergalactic machinations put into play by Darth Sidious.

At the end of the day, Phantom Menace is O.K. It could have done without several of the more stupid scenes (anyone who has seen the phantom edit knows what im talking about) and could have done with more scenes of the council, the Jedis kicking off and a bit more character exposition (with regard to Amidala, the Jedis, Maul and Sidious).
So a stalemate. Decent film, nothing to write home about. But not half as bad as some make it out to be.