Star Wars 2

Rating: 3/10 (8 February 2020)

Continuing my re-visiting of the Star Wars films and yikes. If you watch these things sequentially, they get bad real fast. Attack of the Clones is a garbage fire of a movie filled with some of the worst stuff in any Star Wars film.
It's really hard not to point the majority of the blame right at Hayden Christensen. The argument can always be made that he's just doing as directed and it's not really his fault and to an extent I agree with that. Christensen probably isn't the one that decided to have little Ani rapidly age and develop feelings for the seemingly ageless Padme, but he sure made it super duper creepy! His weird looks and stares are flat out unsettling at times like he's some Jedi sex offender. Anakin is central to this movie and absolutely everything about him is wrong.
But wait, there's Yoda! When I first saw this I thought the Yoda fight scene was the best thing ever. Nooooot so much anymore. It's just weird. McGregor is doing fine work here though and his turn as Obi-Wan is one of the best, if not THE best thing about the prequels.
Attack of the Clones also continues this need to be just goofy at times. Jar Jar is back and awful but beyond that there are huge action scenes and epic moments where they just have to wedge in some dumb gag.
I so want to like these. Exploring the Star Wars universe and the birth of both Vader and the Empire should be a lot of fun. In this case, it's really not. The bad things are pervasive and problematic and they get everywhere. Just like sand.