Lucas at his low point

Rating: 2/10 (14 August 2013)

I hate this movie, I really do. George Lucas squanders whatever talent and reputation that he had left on this god awful film that sadly has made one billion dollars. In the world's defense, they did not know what they were getting into. The beginning of the film tells us that it is doomed from the start. Zero character development... Just light sabers. Hard to believe the previous installments were compelling. However, I can see what Lucas was trying to do. He was trying to find familiarity. He did it in the wrong thing, it is better to find familiarity in plot points and certain details, sadly he tried to find it in more lasting things, like characters. That is where surprisingly, where the film reaches its lows. He tries to make it an ensemble thing. In a film like this, that setup cannot work. He needed to give one character, and I do mean one character a focus, or a journey. You need to get attached to characters before they engage in risky situations, it will have more of an effect because your emotional effect resonates into making the characters go through real peril. This setup does not work, that's why the film fails. The performances do not make this film better, not one bit. Liam Neeson and Ian McGregor give decent performances, but the real weak link is Jake Lloyd as Anakin Skywalker, and Ahamed Best as Jar Jar Binks. Both easily some of the worst performances from a child actor, and an actor in general I have ever seen. In Anakin's case, he needed to be a teenager or a young adult, that will make more of the situations he goes through believable. But Jar Jar, I despised every waking moment, every dollar wasted through CGI, every second I heard his grinding, agonizing voice, the bottom line is that this character was not needed, ever, what were you thinking George? What were you thinking? There actually was something I liked from this film- Samuel L Jackson as a Jedi! Best casting ever, enough said. In the end, this is fortunately the lowest possible point in the prequel trilogy, if you saw it, stay as far away as possible.