Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones | Review

Second installment postpones the satisfaction.

A couple of years ago, people would have given their first born for a ticket for the opening day screening of the first episode of the 6 part saga. Phantom Menace gave us back our childhood epic light saber battle fantasies, too much Jar Jar and not enough action. Now, the new chapter is loaded with a little more action-packed sequences, some C3PO humor to replace annoying Jar Jar, a pissed off Yoda with a little more narrative that fails to captivate.

Welcome to the second highly anticipated installment from the Lucas dream factory. Okay, so most would agree that as of yet the weaker film of the series was Episode I for a little too much lengthily back-story set-up and a little too much kiddy entertainment, but George’s number 2 will make a couple of the geeks happy with the romantic fields of grass, fireplace romance and edge of the lake fairy tale fireworks between Senator Padmé Amidala by Natalie Portman (The Professional) and Anakin Hayden Christensen (Life as a House). Put 1 and 1 together and well, we get the picture of how Princess Leia and Luke come about, but these scenes are violently rough to watch, the acting in particular is hard to watch, but then some will disagree and say Portman’s new sultry dress selection was an important factor for character development. The more important story development is the relationship between the Jedi in training wunderkid his disobedience trainer Obi-Won and is overdone with we hear you loud and clear George abundance of pouting and grimacing and arguing. The other subplots like Fett bounty hunter family tree, and the clone production makes for a little divertissement and keeps pushing the story and interest level at par but the charged epic battle scene looks perhaps half as good ad the split second glimpse I saw on the trailer. Fortunately, even if we generally know the direction of the film and especially the consequences, there are still a handful of surprises for those who merely appreciate the films as films and don’t name their children by characters of the film. The fact of the matter is that it is fun to watch these outer space samurais in action and it may never grow tiring to see regular features such as multi-colored light sabers, druids, Lucas creatures and the force, a mythology of sorts for the big screen. On the brighter side, Attack of the Clones does present some darker elements and the glimpses of mentor rage and anger which will mostly likely lead to some high-octane light-saber battle in the final (III) Star Wars film.

Like I mentioned before, the acting is pretty brutal and even the more seasoned veterans look a bit off, even Ewan McGregor (Moulin Rouge!), who looks like Heston in Planet of the Apes seems to have some trouble in the world of blue screens, and some of the short dialogue sequences come across a bit rough, but in terms of casting decisions, Hayden Christian seems like a great choice for the role of Anakin/Vader. Familiar are screen swipes from one scene to the next, a William’s score and plenty of special effects, that are just as impressive as anything that is being made today. The textures in the Metropolis-like worlds are simply mind-boggling. Attack of the Clones is a better film than Phantom Menace, but I wouldn’t impatiently stand in line for it, wait a couple of days more for a reduced Tuesday fare and enjoy Yoda dropping his cane. As for the next film, I’m expecting a lot more than just Mr and Ms. Vader to get jiggy with it, and I’m expecting to see a lot more than the transformation of Anakin into Darth, I hoping to see a more complete film, the true pinnacle of the saga, not an easy task at hand, may the force be with you George.

Rating 2.5 stars