Good but not great.

Rating: 8/10 (13 December 1999)

It's difficult to criticize The Phantom Menace without being biased by the fact that it is a Star Wars movie. I definately walked into the theatre hoping for nothing less than the best movie of all time. It was therefore unavoidable that I would be just a little dissapointed.
As a stand-alone movie, TPM would be quite weak. There isn't much character development, the plot is pretty thin, and the presence of Jar Jar Binks almost made me want to vomit. But we have to remember that it is NOT a stand-alone film, it is the beginning of a series of six. As such, it has a lot of ground work to lay for the upcoming sequels.
Whatever its weaknesses, TPM is definately exciting. The podrace and the duel with Darth Maul alone are worth the price of admission. The CGI backgrounds are nothing short of breath-taking. Industrial Light And Magic have given us the ultimate realization of George Lucas' vision.
In short, amazing action sequences and beautiful cinematography and FX more than made up for the limp plot and feeble character development. I gave The Phantom Menace an 8/10.