Star Wars Episode 2: Attack Of The Clones
Directed by: George Lucas
Written by: George Lucas and Jonathan Hales
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Samuel L. Jackson, Ian McDiarmid, Christopher Lee

I don’t know about you, but my expectations for Star Wars Episode 2 were not all that high. By now, just about everyone and their mothers had complained about the disappointment that Episode 1 brought, and it’s true, the movie did have a lot of problems with it. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that George Lucas cannot possibly reproduce the feel of the original 3 Star Wars films, for reasons that are too numerous to mention here. We can’t be comparing these new movies to the originals because they’re not even in the same league.

Still, that doesn’t mean these films are critic-proof either. People still want to go in to theatres and be entertained. Does Attack Of The Clones deliver? Yes indeed. Attack of the Clones is easily a more enjoyable movie than Episode 1, but mainly because Anakin is no longer a kid, and events do not seem to happen through unlikely coincidences. (The fact that Jar Jar makes only a few brief appearances may also have something to do with it.)

As we all know, this movie marks the beginning of Anakin’s progression towards the dark side, and his eventual metamorphosis into Darth Vader. This makes the film much darker, and more serious in tone than Episode 1 was. Episode 2 opens with Senator Amidala coming to Coruscant for an important political meeting, when there is an attempt on her life. Obi-Wan Kenobi and his apprentice Anakin Skywalker are assigned to protect Amidala, and eventually the story splits off into two directions. Anakin goes back to Naboo with Senator Amidala where he acts as her personal Jedi bodyguard, while Obi-Wan does some detective work to reveal a traitor within the Jedi order. Along the way, Anakin macks on Amidala and professes his love for her, while Obi-Wan discovers a Clone army and faces off against a bounty hunter named Jango Fett. The events that transpire all lead up to the beginning of the famous Clone War, and set the scene for Senator Palpatine to seize control of the Senate and start his reign of terror as none other than Emperor Palpatine.

One thing is clear to me after seeing this movie. George Lucas may be a talented man, with a great imagination, but when he tries to maintain control of everything in a film all by himself, he sacrifices some of the quality of what is produced. There are much better writers and much better directors out there. He really should be combining his talents with others in order to create the best movie he possibly can. (He did get help with the screenplay from Jonathan Hales, but that didn’t seem to improve anything.) As a result, Lucas takes full blame for most of the questionable aspects in Episode 2.

First of all, the dialogue was pretty cheesy, there is no doubting that. The love story between Anakin and Padme just seemed ludicrous, especially when they began confessing that they had been in love “from the moment they met”. When they first met, Anakin was a stupid little kid, there is no possible way Queen Amidala would have fallen in love with him back then. That’s just sick. Still, with some of the outfits Natalie Portman was wearing, I was willing to believe just about anything she said.

Another extremely annoying thing is that Lucas feels the need to bring every single old character into these films. In Episode 1, he claimed that Anakin actually built C-3P0 himself, just so the smart ass droid could make an appearance. This time around, they encounter 3P0 at Uncle Owen’s moisture farm, and from that point on he tags along with them for no apparent reason. No explanation is even given, which is just lazy storytelling. C-3P0 also manages to deliver some of the corniest lines in the entire movie, and I almost wish he hadn’t come along for the ride.

Lucas is also not one for subtlety. They really overdid the portrayal of Anakin’s recklessness and his potential descent to the dark side. It was almost laughable how he would fly off the handle and argue with Obi-Wan every single time he was on screen, and John Williams’ variations on the Imperial March theme really hammered the point home. Also, is it just me, or did Anakin suddenly turn into James Bond? Some of the stunts he pulled off in this movie were just a little too much. To his credit, however, Hayden Christiansen did a pretty good job of maintaining some credibility despite the ridiculous situations he was given to work with.

The other problem with George Lucas is that he thinks computer graphics can handle all of the special effects in his movies now, but they just aren’t at that level of perfection yet. Don’t get me wrong, they did some amazing things with computer effects in Attack Of The Clones, but there are still scenes where creatures look fake, and humans do not interact with them appropriately on screen. There were shots were you could tell that 100% of what you saw on screen was generated with a computer… it felt like watching Final Fantasy or something. Granted, they could never hope to create the bustling metropolis of Coruscant or the gigantic Clone army without computers, but I guess I just have issues with using computer graphics for central characters in movies. (On the other hand, I will admit that Yoda looked pretty real in this movie, except when they showed close-ups of his face.)

Another unfortunate thing is that this film didn’t feel complete. Obviously this is a problem inherent to middle movies in trilogies, but the ending did not seem satisfactory and it just didn’t feel like the movie accomplished anything other than to prepare audiences for Episode 3. I could almost feel Lucas checking off the various plot points that he had to hit on as the movie progressed. The movie just didn’t flow like it should have. For instance, the first half of the movie there is a real sense of mystery, as Obi-Wan investigates an attempt on Senator Amidala’s life. Unfortunately, with the confusing and rushed way that the story is told, we never get a chance to guess for ourselves what is going on, and we never really get a sense of suspense from it.

Even despite these complaints, I found myself completely sucked into the film during the last 40 minutes or so. I was impressed with how much they were able to reproduce the feel of some of the original films near the end with the gladiatorial execution scene, and it was a lot of fun seeing Yoda in action. I enjoyed the battle scenes at the end so much, in fact, that I stopped caring about the lame story and wooden dialogue. It was at this point that the movie stopped taking itself so seriously and just settled into a groove. This is proof that when Lucas isn’t trying to force the plot forward, and when he isn’t overexagerrating characters, he can still paint a pretty absorbing picture and deliver some riveting action sequences.

I think the focus on all the politics in the middle of the film really dragged the pace of this movie down. The original trilogy had a lot more resonance because it was always a simple good versus evil conflict. And since the story and characters were new to people, there was a sense of intrigue and discovery to the original films. With Episodes 1 to 3, there have been so many Star Wars novels and comic books and video games that have come out in the meantime, that the Star Wars universe is almost too detailed and complex now. To tell a story, everything has to be consistent and everything has to be explained, which takes away from the fun.

All things considered, Lucas has done a respectable job of making an entertaining movie that still achieves everything in needs to in the grand scheme of the Star Wars universe. I think fans and non-fans alike should be pleased. This isn’t a masterpiece by any means, but hey, what do you expect from a so-called “space opera”? The good thing is that Episode 2 ends on a high note, and it seems safe to say that the best is yet to come. — Sean