Hmmm. I watched this again recently hoping that it wasn't as mediocre as I had thought first time around. Sadly, not. The opening scenes are great: a good fight with lots of action and lightsabres; then it descends into a sort of cross between "Ben Hur" and "The Golden Child" with some pantomime thrown in too. The film is clearly designed to be part one of another trilogy and as such spends way too much of it's time setting the scenes and establishing the characters for the films to follow. We do start to get a sense of the evil "Palpatine" and it looks spectacular, but it is basically pretty empty and soulless with a very weak storyline.

MORE REVIEWS @ https://www.msbreviews.com/ Rewatching it before OBI-WAN KENOBI. Even ignoring the lack of narrative impact of THE PHANTOM MENACE in Luke Skywalker's journey, it still doesn't work for me. The climactic lightsaber fight and the podracing are cool, but the terrible dialogue, awful editing, Jar Jar, and the f****** midi-chlorians ruin the whole thing. I'm not as annoyed by Anakin as others, though. Nor Padmé, I actually like her character. However, when most of the script consists of extremely boring political meetings or scenes with an overreliance on - now dated - CGI, most performances feel the same: emotionless. John Williams' score is THE big plus. "Duel of the Fates" is going to be remembered forever. It genuinely saves the movie from being an absolute disaster, to be honest. If not for the poor editing choices, the final act would have been much, much better. Rating: D+

So I watched this at a midnight screening when it was released (the first time midnight screenings happened...). The blast of horns for John Willams' score occurred and the title scrawl happened, droidikas appeared - I had a buzz going. But that buzz got less and less as the film wore on. Jar Jar appeared...and then Anakin trying to crack onto Padme...Darth Maul appeared and I got excited, but the dialogue continued like a child had written it and the excitement had dissipated by the time the Pod Race started. It was the first time I had really been deeply disappointed by a movie. The came the Lego Star Wars games...and this movie became alright. Probably because Lucas had made this film for kids (hence the overly simple plot and dialogue), is why it worked so well with Lego characters miming scenes. I have watched this now countless times as a part of the 4-6, 1-3 order of Vader being a villain, redeeming himself and then becoming a villain. And my appreciation of it has grown a little. The CGI for the time was great - it has become old though; and the movie relies on this too much, so some scenes do not feel grounded (or have people looking into space rather than at a character). Im now OK with the pod race as a homage to Ben Hur - the details that have been thrown into it are grand, and it is a good length for the film. And I really like that Lucas tried to expand what goes on in this universe. He started the world building quite well, but this meant A LOT of exposition to catch people up on how things are different to 4-6. I dont mind that, there was a lot of exposition in 4 as well. And as always, Lucas put in details that you didnt expect, like Yoda's comments to ObiWan that he could see QuiGon in him, or the spinning parts in C3PO, or R2's introduction and his quippy nature from the start. Setting part of the film on Tatooine is actually smart (Anakin hates it, so Vader wouldnt go searching there between 3-4). And having a planet that is not just a desert, or show, or a forest, or lava, or a city, but that is like Earth is refreshing in this series. I dont even mind the Midichlorian comcept - why wouldnt an advanced society try to find out how "magic" happens and find a way to test for it? But you can also see the things where Lucas just tried toooo hard- they stand out like nothing else. And here are the usual topics for this film - JarJar, having to go to Atlantis (you could take both of these things out and the plot and character development wouldnt change at all), the under-developed plot and dialogue, Anakin being "bratty". The Pod Race also feels kind of superfluous - written into the plot as Lucas wanted to "homage." And Ill give it credit for actually trying to do something and expand the universe (unlike the dreadful Ep 7, but thats another story). There are consequences in this universe and foreshadowing of some things to come. we got to see how the Jedi worked in their prime (and moreso in Ep 2). As movies go, this one is really mixed. But it is a great computer game.