Square Film in a Round Hole

Rating: 6/10 (18 February 2012)

May the FORCED be with you. That is the guts of this movie; it is not allowed to develop on its own, it is forced. Yes, with the original trilogy establishing already what we know will happen, George Lucas has to set all the pieces on course to get there. But the ways that these characters and plot points set-up to the original trilogy is like forcing molasses to flow as free as water.
Stiff acting, again, a casualty of being forced to act with a tennis ball that represents a character that hasn't been created yet with effects. This along with good actors having to believe a line that is more stunted than a thirteen year-old asking out a hot gal on a date.
Unlike Episode I where the podrace and final lightsaber duel were the highlights and truly remarkable Star Warsian moments, here we don't have much, save for a surprising entry in the final lightsaber show-down.
It has been said that the middle entries into trilogies are the weakest points, both the original trilogy and Godfather disprove this, yet Episode II succeeds in keeping the notion going. With the let-down three years before, the hype around this movie was quite less than before. Yet I remember the biggest hype among my Star Wars friends was that there was no WAY that this movie would fail after the last effort. Thankfully we were right, but not by much.
I remember walking out of this movie originally on opening weekend coming to the realization that this new prequel trilogy was going to be a bust. This movie, while SLIGHTLY better than the last, still failed in the same places and for the same reasons. But it is Star Wars and that means spectacle, and that it is, and its only real saving grace.