Awful: Total lack of restraint

Rating: Null/10 (19 May 2002)

I went to see EpII with an open mind, despite having been utterly dissapointed with Ep I. After all, Ep IV, V, and VI were all pretty good (teddybears not withstanding).
There is no doubt that Attack of the Clones is indeed better than The Phantom Menace. Unfortunately, it was still a terrible movie. Lack of restraint seems to be George Lucas' biggest problem (even more of a problem than his inability to write dialogue that doesn't induce vomit).
We have endless effects scenes, including the BladeRunner / Fifth Element section which had a plausability factor of zero. And then we had the whole section in the droid factory which added nothing, helped ensure that disbelief was utterly unsuspendable, and looked like a computer game. Threepio has his head welded onto a battle droid and the battle-droid has his head welded onto threepio (the same threepio that was built by a 7 year old boy...). I presume that was intended to be humour, but it all adds to the list of things which make the film unbelievable, and therefore ultimately pointless.
Obviously, the film had little or no consistency. Artoo now has little rocket thrusters and an fly around. Cool.... But hang on, this one is before EP IV, V and VI, so shouldn't he have been able to fly on those films too. That way he wouldn't have had to sink into that swamp....
The romance section reminded me of both Little House on the Prairy and the Sound of Music. A lot of people laughed at that point. My partner went to sleep.
The pity of it is, that with 20 - 30 mins of the retsraint-lacking (or just plain embarassing) scenese removed, it would probably be a half decent Star Wars film.
Finally, neither Portman or Christensen seem to be able to act. Which is unfortunate.
I'd like to think that Ep III is going to be better, but I have little faith.