Well...that happened

Rating: 7/10 (18 May 2002)

Went to see Episode II last night at 11:45 PM. Theatre was pretty full, although not at capacity. Unlike with Episode I, there was no spontaneous pop when the lights went out, or when the Star Wars theme started. Sort of an ennui seems to have set in after the first film.
What worked:
-- Obi Wan. I thought Obi-Wan carried the film tremendously. Ewan McGregor may be the only capable actor in the film. That is the difference between the original trilogy and the current releases, the acting is just not up to par.
-- The last 45-minutes or so saved the entire film for me. The fight scenes were are all entertaining, and Yoda going crazy got the biggest pop of the night (the only pop actually, the crowd was dead silent throughout the film, outside of a few chuckles at the cheesy love dialogue.)
--Lack of Jar Jar was good. He had like 2 lines. He was actually booed by some of the audience when he came onscreen. Ok some of the audience was me :-)
--Mace Windu. I thought Jackson was strong in his role, I just wish he would have had more time on screen.
What didn't work:
--The Plot. I know Lucas couldn't finish the screenplay himself and had to bring in another writer to fine tune it, but c'mon, this dialogue is some of the worst in any movie I have ever seen. I think half of the nutcase star wars fans on the internet could have written a more coherent script. Amidala all of sudden falls in love with Anakin, after he slaughters, women and children. Ahhh, how sweet. Don't cop out and say it'a Star Wars, it has to be cheesy, ESB and ANH were not cheesy IMHO. Yoda with the Moliere-esque Deus Ex Machina finish came across as somewhat lame to me (although expected).
--Hayden Christensen as Anakin. He was stale and rigid throughout the film. I thought he had a couple of decent facial expressions in the film, but overall he was pretty bad. I don't want to watch She's All That in Space.
--The opening city montages were reminiscent of Blade Runner in that neon glowing world kind of way. It didn't feel like Star Wars, it felt like Neo-Tokyo or something.
--Overall, the scenery with the millions of colors still feels out of place for me. There's just too much CGI in the film, I don't know how else to say it. The original magic contained the human element, whereas these films are so CGI-based that the actors are often talking or working with blue screens. Yes the film looks pretty, but that isn't why people go to see these films. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you have to do it.
--Who are the fans supposed to side with? This may be an ancillary point to the above one. When I went to see ESB and ROTJ I went to see Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. They were my heroes. But are there any heroes here? Yoda? I really think they need to develop a strong "hero" character that the fans can associate with. It's hard to associate with Anakin when you know he becomes Vader (well actually I went into the film hoping to associate with Anakin, because that's the crazy b****rd I am, but still). The problem is that the main hero is spread out over a series of characters, Obi-Wan, Amidala, Anakin and Yoda (he did get the biggest pop out of all of them). There wasn't enough storyline for these characters to develop.

--Natalie Portman hasn't grown into a good actress yet. There isn't much more to say. She had a pivotal role in this film, but spent her entire time on screen virtually expressionless.
-- Jango Fett. I remember the actor from the New Zealand film, "Once Were Warriors" as a crazy wife-beater, I think his name was "Jake", it's been 6 years since I've seen the film. Anyway, I'm not quite sure why Fett is even involved in this to be honest. Was Lucas just bowing to the cult of Bobba? Does he have big plans for him? What was the point of having Bobba appear so sympathetic?
The film is definitely worth seeing, at least for the last 45 minutes or so. No it doesn't feel like Star Wars to me, but what does? Lucas will never regain the magic of the original films.