great movie for a 12-year-old

Rating: 5/10 (19 May 1999)

The Phantom Menace really had little to offer for adults, other than a lot of eye candy and a bit of nostalgia. The story was ho hum. We heard a lot about painful death and suffering of a planet, but never even saw any of it. The baddest bad guy had almost nothing to say -- he just popped up a couple of times for a few seconds, and bandied about a light saber in two saber fights. He looked like some guy I saw at a Halloween party last year.
Visual effects were stunning, but to make a great movie you have to have characters you care about. Phantom Menace had few of these.
The good thing this movie has going for it is a hint at the transformation of Anakin Skywalker to come in the next two installments, under the apprenticeship of a young Obi-Wan Kenobi.