Rubbish, and here's part of why

Rating: 1/10 (11 November 2017)

It is very difficult to understand how the man who pulled off Star Wars ended up doing The Phantom Menace. There is a lot of criticism about this film, yet many people are very lenient about it. It is bad. I'll try to explain why. I would tell the reader to expect spoilers, but the film was made in such a way there's no way to spoil it further.
The first problem is that the story doesn't make any sense. The plot revolves around the premise that Palpatine is a corrupt man who controls the dark side of the force and he will transform the Galactic Republic in an Empire. An intelligent person would expect some form of coup d'état in which a military group takes over the government. But no, in this film, Palpatine makes himself "Chancellor" by using an organisation called "The Trade Federation" to create a military blockade in his home planet Naboo. Questions galore: what is a Trade Federation? Why does it have a droid army? What kind of arrangement they made with Palpatine? The main characters then stumble upon each other by accident and end up being played by evil Palpatine and that's the story. Meanwhile, in a subplot, master Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenoby meet Anakin Skywalker and by dubious reasons decide to train him as a Jedi. The reasoning behind this act is never explained fully and we are left with bad excuses like Anakin's blood being full of symbionts that give him special powers.
The second problem is that there is no protagonist. There's no character for the audience to relate to. Anakin appears well into the film, Obi-Wan barely has any lines and Qui-Gon just sort of follows the stream of events.
The third problem is that the characters make very dubious and stupid decisions all the time. In the beginning of the film Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are "disguised" as "ambassadors" to negotiate with the Federation by order of the Chancellor. They are then inefficiently attacked by a bunch of fragile droids because one protocol droid had a hunch they were jedi. They then hide in separate army's ships to "warn" Naboo there was an army coming. Why separate ships? They could end up lost! Why warn Naboo? They had no way to defend themselves, what difference warning them would make? They would be too late regardless. Then why does the droid army land in the other side of the planet? Why do the jedi follow Jar Jar Binks? Why do the Trade Federation try to legalise the blockade? Without an illegal blockade, Palpatine doesn't have leverage to become Chancellor. How would he know? It doesn't make any sense! Then they bump into Anakin and Qui-Gon decides to train him as a jedi because of some prophecy. But nobody ever explains what this prophecy is all about, and Anakin just annoys everyone for the whole film. Queen Amidala then has to talk to the Galactic Senate to solve the situation and nobody believes her, even though the jedi are witnesses and were supposedly trusted by the Chancellor. They live in a sophisticated futurist universe and have no way of verifying that something was happening? Really? Then the Queen decides to go back for no reason and plots an absurd plan to arrest the Trade Federation's "Vice Roy", instead of disabling the droid army. In the end Darth Maul pops up just to kill Qui-Gon and be killed. We know nothing about him, he acts like a deus ex-machina.
The fourth issue is the exaggerated use of CGI in detriment of.. you know, acting. Everything is computer generated, it's sickening. In this film, quantity is the rule. It serves the purpose of showing how George Lucas can get away with some actors cluelessly jumping in a blue screen set babbling space nonsense and have people buying that rubbish.
Lastly, don't get me started on the whole relationship with the original trilogy. Lucas destroyed most of the things that made the original Star Wars great. This film portrays the jedi as detached from reality, making arbitrary decisions all the time, Qui-Gon Jinn has no morals, the force can just be used by people with the right blood, the "hero" is a child in a ridiculous adventure in which chance and convenience are always the rule. There are so many small issues it would take me many reviews like this one to be thorough.
In the end, the script is sloppy, infantile, the pace is boring, the acting is bad, the characters are shallow, the plot is stupid, the special effects are all over the place littering the screen and Jar Jar Binks is horrifying. Lucas probably aimed the film at children, yet children can't even fathom what the hell is going on. Probably not even Lucas himself can understand it. This film is result of no one daring to tell him it was bad. And the biggest problem is: this is not even the worst Star Wars! It gets worse in the sequels!
Bottom line: this is not a good film. Simple as that. Watch at your own risk, but at least question it. The cinema industry has been decaying because people endorse junk like this. Don't be one of them.