A Clone All Too Recognizable

Rating: Null/10 (2 June 2002)

Having grown up on Star Wars, this was a must for me to see. After the Phantom Menace, this was the film that was supposed to right the Star Wars ship. However, even with my standards lowered by the much maligned (some of which was much deserved) Phantom Menace, I still left the theatre with the unnerving opinion that these prequels never should have been made.
The second movie in the prequel Trilogy of Star Wars, Attack of the Clones takes place 10 years after the exposition heavy Phantom Menace. Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) has become a Jedi apprentice to Ben "Obi-Wan" Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), and the senate is in dire straights, with the threat of civil war splitting the council. When an attempted assasination of Senator Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) goes wrong, Anakin is sent to guard Padme while Obi-Wan gets dragged into an investigation which uncovers a threat far greater than once believed. The story has grand intentions, and in that respect I liked it. But shoddy writing, directing and character development once again put a stake through the heart of this film.
Actingwise, while much was flat, it never detracted from the story. Ewan McGregor seems to do the best job, given the most active role as Obi-Wan. Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman try their best to keep the romantic half of the story from fizzling, but Hayden's often poor acting coupled with his often horrible script kept me from being too interested. It also doesn't help Christensen that Anakin is often poorly developed. It seems he is often given the motivation of being " somewhat evil because he'll turn into Darth Vader". In fact, watching this film alone without prior knowledge of the other films will probably make you question the motivations of many of the characters, Kenobi excluded.
And that, therein, is the problem. Billed as a prequel, and following an exposition heavy film it doesn't build off of, much of this film was incomprehensible and unjustifiable unless you were intimately familiar with the source material. As a stand alone film, it fails in comparison to the original Star Wars (although, to be fair, the original Star Wars is perhaps the only stand alone movie of the trilogy), but while the two original sequels built off of the first movie, Attack of the Clones seems to avoid events that happened in Phantom Menace like the plague. There is no Darth Vader like villian that permeates through both films. In fact, there are scarce few "real" villians at all, which hinders the number of things a jedi can fight in a movie.
Now, this doesn't mean that you should avoid this movie at all costs. The film is beautiful to look at. The first film to be totally filmed digitally, the scenary and digital effects are breathtaking. Lightsabers, blaster shots, digital robots and aliens, and starships fill up the screen, never seeming out of place or unrealistic next to their human counterparts. Several scenes also stand out as pure entertainment, including a fight scene with Jango Fett (the predecessor and father of fan favorite Boba Fett), and the much advertised lightsaber duel featuring Yoda (which ellicited applause from the showing I attended). Go to this film if you feel the need to complete the Jedi cycle, but do not expect the enduring classic that the name Star Wars will make it. In attempting to clone the success of Star Wars, Lucas has created a film stunted not by its ambitions, but rather by the very physical things he did to achieve them.