A movie so bad that it helped ruin the next one too

Rating: 3/10 (7 January 2013)

Attack of the Clone is the low point of the disastrous prequel trilogy. The action is bad. The plot is bad, and the contrived romance between Padme and Anakin is so awful that it essentially ruins the story of the prequel trilogy (since it rests so heavily upon the romance between those two). It has a little bit of value in the first viewing, largely because you expect its nonsensical plot to lead somewhere. Instead, however, it remains a mess that does almost nothing to advance the trilogy's story.
The biggest failure with Attack of the Clones is that it leaves so much unfinished that the third movie had to cover every bit of ground that was supposed to be covered in three separate movies. The prequel trilogy fails its main task – to tell a convincing story about how the once noble Anakin Skywalker was seduced by the dark side to become one of the most heinous movie villains of all time. It fails miserably, and the biggest culprit is this lousy second movie. Instead of progressing this difficult story, Lucas spent this entry of the trilogy keeping computer animators employed and boring the audience.
The plot of Attack of the Clones is broken. It starts off with a mystery – who is trying to assassinate Senator Amidala? The answer, which you are given about 3/4 of the way through the movie, is disappointing and nonsensical. The entire assassination plot makes no sense whatsoever. In fact, assassinating Padme would actually hurt the cause of the bad guys. This part of the plot is a disaster of epic proportions.
The original trilogy made Obi-wan and Anakin out to be best of friends. It is this friendship that made Anakin's betrayal that much harder to take. In addition, the original trilogy implied that it was partially Obi-wan's fault, because he arrogantly tried to train Anakin himself. Thus, Obi-wan ended up as a somewhat tragic figure who achieved redemption through Luke. Does Attack of the Clones do a good job of telling this back story? No, it does not. Absolute, pure 100%, unadulterated fail. Anakin and Obi-wan never come across as friends. What little screen time they share is mostly spent bickering. The element of tragedy that comes from one friend betraying another is completely ruined. In addition, Anakin is simply going through typical Jedi training. The guilt that Obi-wan feels over Anakin turning into Darth Vader is ruined too.
The Phantom Menace had some pretty bad writing and plot holes, but Attack of the Clones is worse in every way except for the de-emphasis of Jar Jar. Lucas, though he never admitted it publicly, clearly realized his mistake with Jar Jar after the first movie, and made him a very minor character in this movie. Other than that though, this movie is a step backward in every way except for the CGI budget.
Especially weak is the action in this movie. Attack of the Clones doesn't even provide shallow entertainment. The first action scene is an overly long, pointless, boring chase where Anakin and Obi-wan chase a bounty hunter across a crowded CGI sky. The Phantom Menace had CGI, but it generally supported the story. The lame Coruscant chase scene is where the trilogy crosses the line and the story starts supporting the CGI. Later, there is one good scene where Obi-wan faces off against a bounty hunter. Then, at the end, there is a massive CGI lightsaber orgy involving a hundred jedi and a few hundred robots. It is incomprehensible and unexciting. There are so many lightsabers, so many laser blasts, and so many enemies on screen that there is no way to follow the scene. That scene is followed by another gratuitous CGI battle between two large armies. Like the lame lightsaber fight, it is full of flashing lights and explosions that mean nothing to viewer, who can barely tell the good guys from the bad. *Yawn* There is a poorly choreographed lightsaber fight at the end between two Jedi and a dark side dude too. It features lots of close-ups and quick edits in an attempt to hide the fact that the elderly actor in the scene has no business being in an action movie.
Is there anything that works in this movie? There are a few parts that aren't horrible, I guess. As I mentioned above, the battle between Obi-wan and the bounty hunter is pretty exciting. Christopher Lee's Count Dooku character is a bright spot too. He has one great scene, in particular, where he tries to tempt Obi-wan to join him by revealing that the evil emperor is behind everything. Keeping Count Dooku's loyalties a mystery to the viewer until the end is the lone successful accomplishment of this movie.
Attack of the Clones could have been okay if the romance between Padme and Anakin had been even slightly convincing. It isn't. It is terrible. It is apparent to the viewer throughout the movie that the romance is entirely contrived for the sake of continuity with the original trilogy. After all, somebody has to have Anakin's babies, right? The two characters have no chemistry. When they finally declare their love for each other, it is one of those moments where if you are watching the movie with somebody else, you feel embarrassed, as if that person will think less of you for watching this schlock. The lousy romance affects the next movie too, because Anakin's turning to the dark side depends on it. If the romance isn't convincing, then neither is Anakin's transformation into Darth Vader.
It is mind-boggling that a movie with a script this bad could be put into production. The CGI budget could have been cut in half, and a tenth of that money could have been used to hire a decent writer. It would have made for a much better film. Attack of the Clones is horrible.