Starwars-trek

Rating: 1/10 (31 May 2002)

Just in case anyone looking for derivative things about this film hasn't noticed this one: the clone factory bit is stolen directly from the bit in the Matrix where we see all the humans/human embryos in pods. Do I get a prize?
This is not the worst film ever made. The final fight scene is kind of great (but short), the backdrops look nice, Christopher Lee is in it... and, er, that's it. The problems with this film come down to a lack of connection with anything happening onscreen, thanks to non-characters, terrible dialogue, overuse of computer effects etc. Now, computer effects can look great, but they're limited because most viewers will ALWAYS 'know' when they are being used - they are too often intrusive, and if that happens the film instantly sinks to the level of an hugely expensive computer-game cutscene. Which is what much of this film resembles. One of the (many) reasons...Rings was great was because the FX were by and large seamlessly integrated - they truly enhanced the story. In ...Clones we are presented with ridiculous numbers of superfluous creatures, vehicles and environments, all of which feel carefully designed by advertising executives rather than the inhabitants of any real place. Lucas STILL can't got CGI characters right - the scene where Obi-wan goes into the 'diner' to talk to... whatever it was... was just embarrassing - you could hear the creature designers pulling their hair out. At the bit where CGI Yoda stopped fighting and picked up his stick, you could SEE the model resuming it's 'walk' animation. In the original Star Wars films Lucas used puppets, and the result was creatures that, although you knew they weren't real, actually interacted correctly with the human actors, and hence fitted believably into the fictional universe. I don't think I need to mention Jar-jar other than to say all the time he was onscreen the main dramatic tension came from the dread that he might say something.
The enormous battle scenes suffer from the same problem - how am I supposed to connect with anything that's happening onscreen when it's all so blatantly Unreal? The last battle scene is colorful and detailed, but it's still inferior to any of the battles in earlier trilogy (which used scale models), because I don't believe on any level that it's really happening. One of the reasons the creatures in LOTR looked so solid is because they were actually created by scanning solid sculpted models into a computer, and then animating them. It'll be interesting to compare the believability of the CGI Golem and Treebeard in the next LOTR film to the many "Mummy Returns"-steals in this one.
I don't think it's fair to criticize the actors for the script they had to read. Aside from the 'sand' scene and a couple of Kevin the Teenager ticks, even Hayden Christensen seemed to be having to deal with being TOLD to act that badly. Remember the scene where Hayden is having a nightmare, and Lucas imaginitively chooses to represent this by showing him lying asleep (with his nipples showing) going "No, no!"? LOL! Sam Raimi, who poked fun at that kind of thing with his Ash character in the Evil Dead series must have been cracking up (I was). All the love scenes were either unintentionally hilarious (the Yak-riding scene) or dull, but hey, nice hairstyles. Jango ("Reinhart") Fett was miscast - he looked cool but I think a Bounty Hunter sounds so WRONG with a New Zealand accent.
The best thing about this film? Two words: Christopher Lee. That guy just had to walk on to make everyone else look like pygmies, he has such screen presence, and unlike poor Ewan McGregor (who is a fine actor if given a readable script) he knows how to carry off B-movie grade dialogue like it's Shakespeare. His presence was every bit as required for the final fight scene to actually WORK as Yoda's surprise acrobatic talent - for the first time I cared about the outcome because it actually feels like Count Dooku was as powerful as the special effects would lead you to believe.
It's all roses in the wilderness, though, 'cos otherwise this is yet another extended episode of Babylon 5 (with inferior acting). When "Fellowship Of The Ring" hit several critics sneered at the very idea of Elves, Dwarfs, and Balrogs, even though the film WORKED near-perfectly. Now Clones is out, many of the same critics and much of the public seem to be going: "It may suck, but oh - it's Star Wars". Pity them.