The worst George Lucas Star Wars film

Rating: 5/10 (26 September 2016)

I actually like the Star Wars prequels. The Phantom Menace was one of my most treasured films as a child and I still enjoy it today. Most of the criticism levelled at it is accurate, though I think its detractors exaggerate how bad those flaws make the film. Leonard Maltin gave it three out of four stars and said, "Not a lot of heart, but certainly a lot of fun in Saturday matinée serial fashion." I think that's the fairest appraisal I've read.
Attack of the Clones, however, I would never defend. The key problem is the infamously atrocious romance between Anakin and Padme, which takes up far too much of the running time. Most of it is boring and the rest is just cringeworthy. (Though the "I don't like sand..." speech is memorable and a lot of fun to mock.) As a child, these scenes were unspeakably dull, and even now they are barely tolerable.
Of course, if the rest was brilliant, it would be worth the slog. Unfortunately, the film's best scenes all happen before the romance scenes start, and the climax on Geonosis is only mediocre, even judged in its own right. The large scale lightsaber fight in the arena is tedious, emotionally empty without even the arguable positive of having flashy choreography. The battle becomes even less involving when the clones show up and we get a typical sci-fi war zone. The duel against Count Dooku is okay, but then there's a lot of waffle and then the movie's over. Great.
The highlight of the movie is the car chase through Coruscant near the start. There is some amusing banter between Obi-Wan and Anakin and the chase itself is thrilling enough. It's all downhill after that, though, with the scenes on Kamino feeling sterile, and then the aforementioned bad scenes.
I hold that the Star Wars prequels are badly underrated by the most vocal Star Wars fans, but I can only say that Attack of the Clones may be slightly overrated, if only because haters pass it over in favour of tearing TPM apart. In every way, Attack of the Clones is an inferior film and it deserves a bit more flack than it gets.