Very disappointed. Not a lot of story here...

Rating: 1/10 (16 May 2002)

I was extremely excited about seeing Episode II, especially since Lucas promised a "dark" episode reminiscent of Empire. Wow, I thought, we could really use a dark episode. Since Jedi and Phantom Menace were clearly aimed more towards children (in my opinion) rather than the original Star Wars faithful, both had warm and fuzzy endings (and in some cases, characters too). Well, "dark" wouldn't be an adjective that I would use to describe this movie at all. How about "hardly dingy" instead? I mean, the bad guys just weren't very bad. I may be mistaken, but I only remember seeing Darth Sidius in costume one time. If he did appear twice, he obviously didn't leave much of an impression on me, which only proves my point. Now come on, EVERYONE remembers all of Darth Vader's and Darth Maul's scenes, right? To me, Darth Tyranus actually comes off as a decent guy for most of the movie.

It seems that Lucas is more interested in showing off a lot of special effects rather than telling a compelling story. There just wasn't much material in the script for the actors to be passionate or excited about. Kenobi has a nice civilized conversation with Jango Fett. Anakin has a calm chat with Palpatine. Kenobi has an even keeled conversation with Tyranus. Where's the passion and hate? Where's the fire? Where's the dark side George? Since we all know how it's going to ultimately end, I was really expecting some heated emotions in this movie. You know, Anakin's struggle and all? I didn't feel a lot of that at all.
As an aside, I really noticed a lot of dull filler scenes. Is it really necessary to show everyone getting on and off transport ships? I, for one, am willing to make a leap of faith here and take for granted that characters in this universe can get from point A to point B. If you see them in the next scene on a different planet, I guess they made it. Right? Picture this: The ship pulls up, picks up the passengers and takes off. It then lands, and the passengers get off. Sound exciting to you? If the movie was cut back about 10-15 minutes, I think it would have helped to pick up the overall pace and flow of things.
Overall, I think I was disappointed mainly because my expectations were so high. Hopefully, I just lowered yours and you can enjoy the movie for what it is, rather than for what it is not.