The Light saber is Quicker then the eye....

Rating: 7/10 (8 February 2006)

The second installment of the prequel Trilogy telling the story of young Anikin's Decent into the dark side of the force.
First off I want to say that I think Hayden Chirstensen did an excellent job of portraying Anikin in this film. In fact, I wish we could have skipped over the whole Kidie version from Phantom menace (Jake Loyd) and just focused on Hayden through all three films.
Likewise Natalie Portman as senator Amidala gets her awkward Orientel like geisha wannabe outfits put behind her and allowed to show her talented face.
They also did a great job aging Ewan McGreggor into a older Obi-wan. McGregor plays Obi Wan Perfectly in my mind.
The romantic scenes developed in this movie between Senator Amidala and Ankin are Awkward at best. I do not blame this on the actors they did the best they could with the poor dialog choices. I dunno , I don't see the magic here, all i see is a montage of thrown together scenes that Looked like some bad 80's movie with sci if paint.
I also had a problem with one of the most important moments in the trilogy....When Anikin's mother dies in his arms from being held prisoner over the last few months by the sand people. Anikin goes on a rampage and slaughters the entire village with his light-saber. The scene Sounds great....But Lucas makes it cheap by not showing it. You hear the light saber swwosh and sand people dying and Cut to a new scene before we can show you the real rage....all so we can get a PG rating and keep the kiddie tickets flowing in. But Older fans, ya know the ones that watched the original trilogy back in 77 ....Where not kids I think we can handle PG-13 don't you ???
All that said and done, The special effects are amazing. The last 30 min of the movie is phenomenal in choreographed Special effects candy that make Phantom menace look like a cheap b-movie.
I also enjoyed Obi-Wan's fight scene against Jengo-Fet in the rain, and I like how all these events with Jengo tie in to his sons actions in empire stirkes back, in the old trilogy.
On another sour note, the light saber duels * cough Lame. I'm talking about Obi-wan and then Anikin against Count Dookoo. They kept showing anikin with 2 light sabers in the trailers, And i thought thats gonna be so cool. But I'm the theater I was so disappointed. We are treated to Scenes of Anikin and Dooko Close up face view with a glow of light-sabers flashing,(we can hear th sound of them clashing but not y being scene)....They move so fast you cant see it!!!! *rolls eyes, Come on people the Dual in phantom menace was asome....What happened ???
Of chorse this is balanced out by Yoda coming out and kicking some ass. I was laughing and cheering for this part of the movie, pure joy.
Over all I give this a slightly higher rating then phantom menace, mostly because Portman and Hayden bring much more depth to the film then the first movie.