Decent eye candy, okay story, lacking otherwise. *may be spoilers*

Rating: 6/10 (9 July 2002)

What should my expectations of Episode II be? After the universally-slammed (though liked by me) Episode I, Star Wars fans pinned their hopes on this film.
First off, my feelings on the "Star Wars" franchise: I like the films. They're not my favorite, and I don't believe "A New Hope" deserves to be #9 on the Top 250, but they're all great films in their own right, with, of course, "The Empire Strikes Back" as the best. So do NOT say that I hate Star Wars, or any of that cr*p.
Good things: let's see. Acting for most of the supporting characters are good. Ewan McGregor, Samuel L. Jackson, Christopher Lee, Temeura Morrison, Jimmy Smits, Ian McDiarmid, and even Frank Oz as Yoda are great. The fight scenes are nice - esp. the fight(s) between Jango Fett (Morrison) and Obi-Wan.
Without further adieu, then, let's plunge into the negative.
The special effects. From the 10-minute point onward, we are bombarded with endless digital effects. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but they appear to have been created merely to take our minds off the cheese of the story. At first, they're appreciated and much enjoyable; but, by the 70-minute mark, they getting tiring, boring, and stupid. The aliens, the chase scene are all cr*p, in my opinion. They may look good, but after awhile you get strained. CGI Yoda fighting Christopher Lee is extremely overrated; what the h*ll was the point of their fight? NOTHING was resolved, and it appeared that the only point of their meeting is to energize the audience.
One probably shouldn't criticize bad dialogue in a Star Wars film, but I will anyway. Anakin and Padme's lines are forced, and as far as I can tell, they are not in love. But hey, I'm just reporting what I saw. Other dialogue (esp. C3P0) is lame; humor is geared at four-year olds, and ones more intellegent than a gopher probably wouldn't laugh anyway.
Now to the two leads. Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman suck. Christensen has proven himself at least a decent actor, and Portman is a great (and beautiful) one, but come on! As mentioned above, their dialogue is as believeable as a hundred-foot worm. Padme is apparently quite smart, but you wouldn't no it, given how she fell for Anakin after hearing all that WHINING!
Other comments on the love scenes, the duel, etc. have already been well-covered, so I'll stop there. Did I enjoy the film? Yes. But I think Lucas needs to have someone ELSE direct and write the next one.
Six stars out of ten for Episode II.