When CGI goes berserk!

Rating: 1/10 (6 August 2009)

Not even an argument as far as I'm concerned, STAR WARS, EPISODE TWO: ATTACK OF THE CLONES is the absolute WORST of all 6 STAR WARS films! And, given it's budget, some of the actors in it, and just the fact that it is part of the STAR WARS saga itself, perhaps a contender for one of the worst films of all time, at least worst big-budget films.....Wow! And I remember when this first came out that a significant number of fans thought THIS was better than PHANTOM MENANCE...Nope! Not even close, actually.
While MENACE has its share of sorry dialogue and characters (Jar Jar Binks!), it mostly benefited from mimicking the fast pacing of the original A NEW HOPE and has some exciting set pieces and moments (fast-paced opening, the pod race, climactic battle). The acting and dialogue in MENACE certainly wasn't spectacular, but it was way better than what we were served with in this clunker! But most importantly, the CGI effects of MENACE essentially did not detract from the film the way it does in CLONES.
CLONES begins with the former Naboo Queen, now Senator, Padme Amidala (played by Natalie Portman) being transported to the planet city Coruscant and and an assassination attempt occurs. Her stand-in is killed and so Senator Palpatine (Ian McDarmid) "suggests" a Jedi escort/bodyguard for her protection. Of course, the duty goes to teenage Jedi-in-training Anakin Skywalker (played by Hayden Christensen). Another attack occurs and so Anakin accompanies Padme to Naboo where the Senate and Jedi feel she will be safer. And thus, the Anakin-Padme romance begins! And that ain't good! A terribly realized, cringe-inducing set of interactions ensues and takes up a large portion of the film. I really don't blame the actors. The dialogue is atrocious. I don't think Meryl Streep and Robert DeNiro could have looked better in this!
Other stories include Anakin's Jedi Master Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) investigating the creation of a clone army on the faraway Kamino star system, and Jedi Masters/Council members Yoda and Mace Windu (Samuel Jackson) sensing a dark, ominous disturbance in the Force. All stories converge to a climactic battle on Geonosis, where the Jedi must battle a droid army led by Count Dooku (Christopher Lee), who is responsible for the attack on Padme's life.
The worst offense of CLONES is the CGI! This film is at present the worst example of CGI use in today's movies. It is completely overdone and really cheesy-looking in a lot of places. I mean, it dominates the film! Yoda is CGI! Not good. The original trilogy demonstrated that you have to have a story. EMPIRE STRIKES BACK had the best story, and A NEW HOPE had an footloose, tongue-in-cheek appeal that more than made up for its minimal plot and story. RETURN OF THE JEDI, actually the weakest of the original 3, by plain default, feels like a masterpiece to CLONES! At least the characters were established from HOPE and EMPIRE by the time of JEDI and we could forgive the rather juvenile nature with which they concluded the original trilogy. The characters in CLONES, however, had never really been established in the fast-paced MENACE. And CGI so dominates CLONES, with no character development whatsoever, yet the film has exposition and dialogue all over the place! And in the end, the climactic battle is deathly boring and confusing. A bunch of Jedi fighting a bunch of battle Droids with a moment that made me cringe more than the Anakin-Padme scenes: when that worm-headed Jedi used his powers to knock C3PO down so he didn't have to participate in the fight and then gave him that weird smile (really eerie!). Trust me, it's a goofy moment! Then Yoda and the Clone army swoops in. And we are "treated" to a terrible lightsaber duel where Obi-Wan and Anakin get their ass handed to them by a 100-year old Count Dooku! So CGI Yoda must save their young butts!
Essentially, the same way that MENACE tried to mimic HOPE, so does CLONES try to mimic EMPIRE: Jedi-in-training Anakin gets trumped by the more powerful former-Jedi-turned-Sith Lord Dooku the way that Jedi-in-training Luke got beat by more powerful Darth Vader and both Anakin and Luke lost one of their hands in the battle (Anakin even lost a whole arm!). Anakin and Padme joined at the end of CLONES (with a noticeably pregnant Padme) the way their offspring Luke and Leia stood together at the end of EMPIRE. Also Anakin and Padme's budding romance in CLONES doubling for Han and Leia's romance in EMPIRE. Obi-Wan off by himself investigating Kamino the way Luke went off by himself to discover Yoda in the Dagobah system in EMPIRE. And of course, the ominous, open ending where we know a sequel is to come! Difference? We looked forward to the EMPIRE sequel wanting more, but with CLONES, we wished the entire movie experience could be taken back! Do-over, please!