MonkeyLizard10 seems to be right…

Evolution of Rotten Tomatoes reviews for The Phantom Menace, according to web.archive.org:

2004: Tomatometer: 62%
2005: Tomatometer: 63%
2006: Tomatometer: 63%
2007: Tomatometer: 63%
2008: Tomatometer: 63%
2009: Tomatometer: 63%
2010: Tomatometer: 62%
2011: Tomatometer: 62% - Audience: 65%
2012: Tomatometer: 57% - Audience: 62%
2013: Tomatometer: 57% - Audience: 62%
2014: Tomatometer: 57% - Audience: 60%
2015: Tomatometer: 57% - Audience: 60%
2016: Tomatometer: 56% - Audience: 60%
2017: Tomatometer: 55% - Audience: 59%
2018: Tomatometer: 55% - Audience: 59%
2019: Tomatometer: 53% - Audience: 59%

So it seems that it was not so hated until 2012, then it suddenly dropped 10% within the last 7 years
(but it remains widely above The Last Jedi which gets an awful audience score of 44%).