Just Plain Goofy

Rating: 3/10 (15 January 2002)

There are many reasons why this movie was such a disappointment. I'll name two (avoiding the obvious one: Jar-Jar Binks!!!): (1) the heavy reliance on CGI animation; (2) the inappropriate use of humor.
Firstly, CGI animation has its utility in creating scenery, background motion, etc., but whenever it is used to portray a main character it ALWAYS looks fake! 100% of the time. CGI is so easy to spot that it repeatedly "removes" me from the movie and forces me to observe, "that was done on a computer". Puppetry and models seldom cause this effect because they are at least corporeal objects that occupy "real" space and do not precipitate such a sharp distinction between reality and computer. The case in point is that it is disastrous to the movie experience to be repeatedly "removed" from the story. In addition, CGI was used to create creatures that from an evolutionary standpoint were nonsensical, and from a visual standpoint were just plain goofy. Atrociously goofy!!!
Secondly, the jocular attitude of the film came off not as funny, but goofy as well. The gags were silly and sophomoric, as was much of the dialog (e.g., "Yippee!"). The jokes were obviously 20th Century American which seems very out of place in a galaxy far, far away (take for example: Jar-Jar stealing the "ex-squeeze-me" line from "Wayne's World", and the goofy sportscasters trying to sound so American, just for starters). In the better Star Wars movies, Harrison Ford (the pusillanimous C3-PO, and others) masterfully contributed great situational humor not from mere silliness, but from their reactions to events, which I believe is a higher form of comic relief. Here things were so absurdly silly that the attempts at humor were annoying, not funny. It appears to me that a conscious effort was made to make this movie ridiculous. Compare how dangerous the Stormtroopers felt in the better Star Wars movies to the Battle Droids who were not just inaccurate or unreliable, but ridiculously goofy! The moment where humor actually worked(!) in this movie was when the Sand People were shooting at the pod racers -- now that was a great moment!
On the positive side, the scenes with an actual human element in the characters were very good. The light saber fight scene at the end was the saber-fight par excellence! The costumes, sets and sound effects were stunning and beautiful. Had there been more acting and less cartoonish animations and goofy gags this could have been a good movie. Nay, great! As it stands, I'd be exceedingly generous to give it a "C-".
Thus spake Yoda: "Fail this movie did, because serious it was not. Hmmm?"