Only average overall, but a big step up from the first one

Rating: 5/10 (29 December 2016)

It was with low hopes that I set out to the cinema to watch the latest offering from George Lucas, considering the out-and-out failure of The Phantom Menace, a film which helped to sour the image of the bearded god for thousands of former fans. In the three years since, Lucas seems to have learned something about film-making and has perhaps even managed to recapture some of the magic which was missing from the first movie. The characters have more interactions this time around, the plot isn't as boring and as a whole the film holds together a lot better than it rightfully should.
Most of the flaws from The Phantom Menace are once again evident, but not as drastic in this offering. Lucas spends more time developing supporting characters to good effect, leaving the leads feeling all too wooden and unrealistic. Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen are definitely the two worst things in this movie, and their slow, cheesy romantic interludes feel a whole world away from the Star Wars universe. They don't belong here, and serve only to drag down the pacing in spots. Both actors fare badly with their dialogue and become laughable at times.
Thankfully, other characters have improved somewhat. Since The Phantom Menace, Ewan McGregor has developed in his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi and actually does feel something like a younger Alec Guinness, unlike last time. He seems more relaxed and more natural in his part as the mentor rather than the learner. Elsewhere, Samuel Jackson returns as ass-kicking Jedi Knight Mace Windu, and this time gets to wield the purple light saber he's always talking about in interviews to good effect. Yoda's back too, this time fully animated with CGI and pretty realistic with it, and he even has a few genuine surprises up his sleeve for the finale. Unfortunately the rest of the council, which includes Ian McDiarmid and a fresh-faced Jimmy Smits, are barely on screen. R2D2 and C3P0 are present and more like the lovable buffoons of old than they were last time.
The special effects are fantastic and go a long way in making the movie worth watching. The other-wordly vistas are nicely scenic and the backgrounds more realistic than before. Once again there are a plethora of partially-successful CGI aliens and the like filling the scenes, although (thank the gods) Jar Jar Binks is mostly ignored this time. Up until the last forty-five minutes of this film, the material is mostly harmless filler, bolstered by some adequate action scenes and intriguing characters. The last forty-five minutes consistent of a huge action sequence which begins like Gladiator, turns into Braveheart, and finishes with a climatic light saber fight between Christopher Lee and Yoda which is equal parts cheesy and equal parts cool. Yep, the grand old man of horror Christopher Lee appears in this film as bad guy Count Dooku (shame about that name) and manages to be a lot more menacing than last film's Darth Maul, although once more you can't help but feel he's underused seeing as he doesn't turn up until an hour into the film.
The action sequences of the climax are expertly choreographed and full of beautiful special effects of things exploding, people fighting and dying and hundreds of CGI-created soldiers going about their business and shooting it out to the death. My favourite moment is the arena fight with Anakin, Padme, and Obi-Wan, which introduces three excellently-animated monsters and some ferocious fighting. From then on it doesn't let up and the ending is a lot more involving and exciting than it has any right to be. If only the rest of the film could have been of this standard, then we might have been looking at a classic. As it stands, Attack of the Clones is half bad (full of revealing mistakes and inherent dumbness), half good (impressive as brain candy but nothing more), leaving it a mildly impressive but far from brilliant spectacle piece.