Somehow 3 stars still seems WAY too generous for The Phantom Menace

Rating: Null/10 (3 November 2019)

Back in the day, some of us LOVED the Phantom Menace... then a couple weeks later I think the sickening realization sank in.... The Phantom Menace sucked... it sucked, and even today when some people are trying to reevaluate the film, there's no way around how much it still sucks. It's not just that the characters are the most underwhelmingly written in the history of Star Wars, it's also that the story is pretty unremarkable, which is inexcusable in a universe that gave us awesome intergalactic wars, hence the title STAR WARS.
Part of the problem with the film is the tone. Don't get me wrong, Jar Jar isn't the problem, the problem is that George went a little too far in some places with the comedy and the jokes. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there can't be comedy in Star Wars, but there is a certain line you don't want to cross, otherwise your movie starts to become something downright cringeworthy, which unfortunately is how I feel pretty much every second of this goddamn movie.
Qui-Gonn Jinn is a super-weak character. He completely lacks personality, any sort of charisma, and he's a good guy solely because he's a Jedi even though he does ethically questionable things... like trying to force trick Watto into accepting currency he can't use, rigging a dice game, and yet at the end telling Obi Wan of Queen Amidala "We cannot use our powers to help her.".
Ewan Macgregor is terribly wasted in the role of Obi-Wan. his role in TPM basically amounts to swinging around a lightsaber, "picking up another pathetic life form", and fighting Darth Maul and.... that's it. There's no insight or anything interesting we learn of his character in the film.
Anakin Skywalker is... just the worst. To be fair, that has nothing to do with Jake Lloyd. George Lucas just from using a little common sense should have had the power of reason to realize that of all the things in Star Wars, we did NOT need to see Anakin Skywalker as an annoying little kid. Because in the next episode, we'll see him as a whiny emo hormonally charged murdering annoying teenage brat! Character development!!!
Natalie Portman is just... close to intolerable for her role as Padme Amidala. She's just... terrible. It's almost like George Lucas used all the edits where Natalie was half-asleep while delivering every other line. There's nothing memorable or interesting about her character.
People like to point at "Dual of the fates" as the reason why this movie is great. Okay, fine, the music is good, but the scene where Qui-Gonn and Obi-Wan fight Darth Maul is pretty... lame actually. We don't know anything about Darth Maul, therefore we have no investment in his character, therefore the whole scene comes off less as something fun and dramatic and more as eye candy that the fan boys crave.
From what I have heard, the book adaptation of The Phantom Menace was SOOOOO much better. Maybe if George worked from that, TPM might have been a better movie. WOW, imagine a universe where The Phantom Menace is actually a good movie! Because it sure as hell isn't ours!
I feel like the movie's ultimate message is that you can succeed in spite of your own incompetence. Think about it, Anakin blows up a ship in spite of the fact that he can't even see over the canopy of the Naboo Starfighter. Jar Jar repeatedly does things to attack the droid army as a result of his bumbling like a clown.
So to sum up... terrible characters who either suck or are just completely wasted... and a story that's just... not interesting. The Phantom Menace just doesn't engage the viewer like the original trilogy or even the new movies do. George was founding this whole prequel trilogy on the premise that it would be about the fall of Anakin Skywalker... boy, what a mistake that was.