Excellent!!!

Rating: 8/10 (17 May 2002)

I went to see this at a preview midnight showing on Wednesday night/Thursday morning of opening day - the movie was showing in 3 or 4 screens and all appeared packed out - The 2+ hours that followed were a VAST improvement over episode 1(which i liked, but could have been better) and appeared to have been enjoyed by all who attended.
I've heard some people say that they thought Anakin was acted badly, but his arrogance and annoyance was apparent as i had expected for his character, and all the other characters were played brilliantly by a great cast - Yoda has been replaced by a completely computer generated character which works even better than what i feared when i heard about it(jar jar, although not as annoying to me as to others, just didnt looks right in some scenes of episode 1), but most of all was Ewan McGregor's absolutely flawless performance as Obi Wan Kenobi and a nice performance from Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu - the two actors clearly showing how much they are enjoying playing their parts and are completely comfortable with their roles. Also a lot more subtle an introduction for characters which will play an important role in the following episodes(Bobba Fett, Owen Lars, Bail Organa), having them actually be included as part of the plot and not just because they need to be worked in for continuity with the back story as in episodes 4-6.
A HUGE improvement over episode 1, and surely a sign that even better things are to come in episode 3. Overall, story wise(the love story, though not perfectly handled, worked within the story), acting wise(some nicely timed touches of comedy make the characters more believable in their situations), and effects wise(the chase in coruscant, and the huge conflict seen in the film looks absolutely amazing, and is hopefully only a glimpse of the clone wars from episode 3).
Overall - 9/10