Technically Perfect but Poorly Plotted

Rating: Null/10 (21 May 2002)

I will certainly admit that this film's special effects and cinematography are nearly flawless; however, I cannot say the same about the plot and dialogue. The plot is dry, predictable, and damn nearly juvenile (the whole thing plays out like a Saturday morning cartoon).
The movie lacks importance: the film's lack of interconnectedness, character development, and good dialogue are really just symptoms of this: We have no grand moral conflicts, no clashes between duty and self-interest(would Yoda, for example, allow himself to use clones just because his friends are at risk?), between good and evil (the evil characters in the first films seemed motivated by a need for order; here they are evil just because the good guys need somebody to fight with), or between love and hate [the abduction of Anakin's mother and the subsequent slaughter of the sand people border on this kind of importance, but they fall before hitting the mark]. Consequently, the events of the plot seem only loosely related; there is no sense in the air that a great catastrophe is building (compare this with say empire where we get the sense that Luke's undisciplined, irrational love of his friends may lead him into darkness). The movie is all exposition followed by an obligatory special effects/action sequence. The film simply lacks intensity---the true intensity that is the product of rising tension and good character development. Even the Anakin character (who ought to be fascinating as he is Darth Vader, one of the most ominous movie characters of all time) seems dull. The other characters hardly exist. This is natural given this film's lack of relevance; why should we care about characters whose actions and words do not speak to the struggles in our own lives? Why should we care about this film?