Okay as an event/popcorn movie, tragic as a Star Wars movie...

Rating: 1/10 (25 May 1999)

I was prepared to look past any poor acting performances and horrible dialogue bits to review this movie holistically, but unlike the previous three films, The Phantom Menace is riddled with shortcomings and failures beyond those of mere wooden acting or poor scriptwriting. The high spots in the film, combined with the franchise's celluloid and merchandising legacies, served to carry most moviegoers' spirits after the final credits rolled, evoking a sense of satisfaction tinged with the nagging doubts that perhaps something wasn't right.
What wasn't right? Lots of things - so many that all of them can't possibly be listed in this critical review. The standouts:

The demystification of the Star Wars universe through a ridiculous and horribly inconsistent explanation of the Force (which is completely incongruous with both the spirit of and the explanation of the Force in the other three movies)

The lack of a definite protagonist and antagonist, and the lack of any built-up central conflict (the only evocative conflict is against someone given less than 20 minutes of screen time, and the Charlie Chan Trade Federation conflict wasn't explained nearly adequately enough to make anyone care)

The obvious and sickening pandering to an extremly young audience (other Star Wars films did phenomenally well with a younger crowd without containing 10-year old actors, toilet jokes, and the contrived usage of "Full House" slang)

Other minor, yet still severely annoying aspects of this film include Anakin's accidental destruction of an orbiting battle station, anachronistic droids, machines, and ships, obvious contradictions (such as a central control station for autonomous battle droids), the death of the only two characters interesting enough for the audience to care about, the two-headed pod race announcer that spoiled the entire sequence, the cartoonish nature of almost every CGI character, the unexplained turning on and off of the shield generator during the final battle between Maul and Qui-Gon, Palpatine's lame one-line explanation of the failures of the Republic, the ridiculous coincidence brought about by Anakin building Threepio, and last, but definitely not least, the entire character, concept, and execution of the Gungan called Jar Jar Binks.
I was planning on being disappointed if this new movie didn't take Titanic's place at the top-o'-the-heap; now, I could care less. It deserves to be seen once, but definitely doesn't deserve to be the #1 movie of all time, and doesn't belong in the Star Wars universe. I wonder if Roland and Dean secretly collaborated with Lucas on this one?