The worst science fiction film ever made

Rating: 3/10 (30 December 2004)

When I saw this film my expectations were high because I had actually liked The Phantom Menace contrary to a lot of other people and so as I got into the cinema and sat down and the lights went down I found that I couldn't wait for the film to begin.
At the end of the film I got out of the cinema and I had a kind of dry taste in my mouth like I had been cheated of something. I realized that I had been cheated of quality. In my opinion there are a few things/elements that make a film good.
First of all the actors have to be good and Ewan McGregor is a very fine actor and does his part but Hayden Christensen is such a terrible actor it actually made me long for Jake Lloyd (who played Anakin in the first movie). There was no depth in his portrayal of Anakin Skywalker and he didn't act very well with all the CG elements that are in the film so you don't believe that he is facing a big kind of bull monster. All you see when you look at his acting is a blue screen. Natalie Portman is equally pointless and is at no point believable. Especially at the of the film she falls out of a speeding airplane and then proceeds to get up and go of bright as a daisy. Furthermore her love for Anakin just doesn't seem real. Samuel L. Jackson who is usually a fine actor plays very badly in this film. This great actor is being reduced to swinging a light saber saying crappy lines and attempting to look cool. Temuera Morrison who plays Jango Fett is for lack of a better word boring. All his attempts to seem devious and cunning is ruined first of all by terrible facial expressions and secondly terrible accent. Christopher Lee provides an adequate villain but ultimately has too little time on screen to seem believable.
The second thing that needs to work is the story and I'm afraid to say that it doesn't. The characters don't seem to grow they are just there and the whole love story between Padme and Anakin seems out of place and often becomes way to boring and overly emotional. Nothing like what the relationship between Han and Leia was in the first films. The story seems to go nowhere often and even though things do happen the fact that the characters are static make it seem pointless. People will undoubtedly say that the character of Anakin changes but in actual fact it doesn't. At least not the way Hayden Christensen plays him.
In a big effects movie the effects have to work and some of the effects do work but most of them you can just tell they were done in front of a green screen and that negates the illusion. When you've seen films like Lord of the Rings you expect that the effects in Star Wars will be as good but they aren't.
All in all a dreadful attempt to revive what was once a great science fiction universe.
3/10 stars