Episode II is terribly flat and uninspired.

Rating: 1/10 (16 May 2002)

Sigh, there are times when you yearn for the glorious victory songs of Ewoks. "Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones" may have destroyed the glorious Star Wars mythology, and I am not sure whose fault this is.
The script is choppy and cheesy. While we are not privileged to see Anakin kick butt in an offscreen maniacal rampage midway through the movie, we are treated to Obi Wan in a stupid intergalactic diner (one-part Mos Eisley Catina, three-parts CGI American Graffiti), Senator Jar Jar Binks getting cheered by his alien comrades in a monumental political speech, and a three-fingered Yoda in a lightsaber duel with Christopher Lee's Count Dooku.
The dialogue is at its best times bad and at its worst times filled with cornball jokes by C-3P0 and even Obi Wan. Hayden Christiansen and Natalie Portman deliver a romance less convincing than a bad daytime soap teen couple, and I cannot begin to decry how terrible the usually brilliant Samuel L. Jackson was.
The introduction of Jango and Boba Fett into the film gave the audience its only interesting characters, but Lucas just let us nibble on filler instead of giving their story the meat it deserved. It seems Lucas is treating the prequels more as backstory than story, that he is more interested in showing the latest innovation in computerized special effects than forging a new saga. Sadly, the CGI eye candy does not match up to the beauty of the Holy Trilogy, nor to more recent special effects spectaculars (The Matrix, Spiderman).
Ultimately, Episode II does much worse than Episode I in captivating the imagination. The cast does not have the chemistry of Hammil, Fisher, and Ford, and Lucas is content with asserting his new and radically different vision of Star Wars in spite of the protests of the legions of fans he won over a quarter century ago.