How a trilogy masterpiece turns into an ordinary blockbuster.

Rating: 6/10 (7 June 2002)

Star Wars is the very first movie I saw in a theater when it was released in 1977. The movie is really my first cinematic experience and since then I am a Star Wars fan. The movie became mythical with the Empire strikes back (1980) and the Return of the Jedi (1983). But then the myth was not resurrected with The Phantom Menace. The Attack of the Clones seems to be George Lucas second attempt to resurrect the legend created 25 years ago. Let's try not to be lenient and understand why this second attempt is in fact a second failure.
This prequel (The Attack of the Clones) starts 10 years after the Episode 1 and is built around 3 major dynamics: - A love story between Anakin Skywalker who has become the `arrogant' Padawan (Jedi apprentice) of the Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi and shares a forbidden love with Padme Amidala who has given up her throne for a senate seat. - A political intrigue: A mysterious separatist movement (born in Phantom Menace) and led by Count Dooku is threatening to start a civil war and to rebel against the Republic. - Finally, we witness the beginning of Anakin turning towards the Dark side of the Force.
The scenario in `Attack of the Clones' has some inconsistency but is still very decent and overall in line with the Star Wars heritage. This scenario is very well supported by the special effects, which I have to admit are among the best yet in the Star Wars saga. Some of the scenes are amazing. To note the very well built and beautifully shot scene when Obi-Wan lands on the clone planet and then meet the cloners as well as Jango Fet who served as a model for the clone army. Also the space hunt when Jango Fet is planing to reach Geonosis, while Obi-Wan is tracking him down is just a formidable piece of work. However Episode II demonstrates that fantastic special effects and a bunch of well built and well shot scenes are not enough to resurrect a Myth, not even to do a good movie.
1. The first point and the least important is that Attack of the Clones has too many characters. Each of them has very little to say. As a result none of the characters has real depth. The movie is already 2 hours and 23 minutes long, therefore it was practically impossible to have strong personality/charismatic characters displaying a full range of feelings and emotions on screen; as a consequence and almost from the beginning the movie characters turn out very much flat. 2. The flatness of the characters is (I believe) not the only mistake in `Attack of the Clones' and sometimes the structure of the movie, meaning length and choice of scenes seems to me very wrongly thought through and often lacks of imagination. As an example the chase of the terrorist in the beginning of the movie if, I acknowledge is very well done, I also think is way too long comparing to the length of the whole movie. From a scene choice stand point Anakin Skywalker is suppose to show his dark side when his mum dies in his arms but we don't really see him turning to the dark side since George Lucas decided not to show us Anakin's cruelty annihilating the entire tribe of the sand people. It seems to me that such a scene would have been much more essential (and not necessarily gory) than watching him riding his cheesy `motorbike'. The battle scene when the clones eventually attack is very well done (from a computer generated picture standpoint) but remains very much confusing. Not to mention the lack of strategy (at least in the shown scenes) which is flabbergasting and below the standard of `The Empire strikes back' in which we had an idea of what the strategy from both side was. Finally Samuel L. Jackson closing slowly on Count Dooku on the balcony of the arena made me think of `Conan the Barbarian' when Conan is carefully walking on Thulsa Doom at the end of the movie. And you know what, Mace Windu chopped off the head of Jango Fet as Conan the head of the villain. I thought that George Lucas had more imagination than that(come on !!!). 3. That brings me to one of the main problem of the movie: `acting'. Sorry for all the lovers of Natalie Portman (Padme Amidala) but she is so stiff and her play so wooden that C-3PO and R2-D2 seem to be more human than she is. When Natalie Portman falls out of the chopper like ship when trying to capture Count Dooku a clone soldier comes to her asking if she's hurt and all of a sudden after a crappy statement she is completely fine back on the chase(Nooo). More than that I don't see love during love scenes, I don't see passion during passionate scenes, she looks a little bit `teenagy' during the action scene, the only credit goes to the cameraman as well as her make-up artist who really make her look very good and even gorgeous sometimes. Hayden Christensen (Anakin Skywalker) is not a mature actor and does not embody the `Jedi Spirit' that Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) carried in `The Return of the Jedi'. His love looks fake when he talks to and looks at Padme. His sadness looks fake when his mother dies. His anger looks fake when he explains how he wiped out the sand people tribe. And he is lacking of energy when he fights with the lightsaber. Samuel L. Jackson (master Mace Windu) can not really do something with the little he has to say. Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan Kenobi) and Christopher Lee (Count Dooku) are doing a decent job. The best actor of all is Yoda (Frank Oz voice) who is a computer generated character (come on !!!???). 4. Bad acting is not only the actors fault: Dialog/script is the second major problem in this movie. We saw that the characters don't have much to say but on the top of it what they say is pitiful. That was one of the strength of Star Wars trilogy (mystical dialog, good sense of humor). Here the dialogs are set up as for a drama play (this is a motion picture not a play in a Theater!). I am passing on the love scene script (remember the story of the coarse sand), which is really poor but even the confrontation's scene are awful with no imagination, so flat and sometimes ridiculous. For instance when Anakin talks to Padme about Obi-Wan: `It's all Obi-Wan's fault! He's jealous. He's holding me back!' (what kind of reaction is that???) or Obi-Wan and Dooku: `I will never join you Dooku!' (come on, don't play it like in a Shakespeare play!!!). 5. My final point and to my opinion the most important one is that the prequel does not convey the mysticism that the trilogy is all about. The `Force' appears to be just a tagline `may the force be with you' and (just like a bad advertising line). The bad guy (count Dooku) is not that scary, and the Jedis are not very wise. Some scenes are not consistent with the trilogy for example when Obi-Wan entered Count Dooku's fortress, he is not detected by Dooku who is suppose to have mastered the force and should have sense a disturbance (remember the Trilogy). Where is the fear, where is the thrill, where is the feeling of power/weakness, and where is the feeling of destiny/fate?
George Lucas said that he did not do `The Attack of the Clone' (and `The Phantom Menace') for the fans. I can understand this statement even if the very reason he can do `The Attack of the Clones' it's because of those very fans. Maybe each generation has its own movie. Maybe Star Wars Trilogy belongs to the 80s whereas Episode I and II to the `new millennium'. That might be the explanation, but I thought that George Lucas did re-invest his own money to build his own movie in order to escape the dictatorship of Hollywood. However what he delivers is a typical Hollywood blockbuster.