If only they could have cloned Episode V

Rating: 3/10 (13 December 2003)

What was it that set Darth Vader off to join the dark side of the force? This film suggests several possibilities: 1) The killing of his mother by Tusken Raiders caused him to channel John Wayne in 'The Searchers.' 2) Getting passed over during the N' Sync tryouts. 3) Discovering the woman of his dreams, upon closer inspection, is a carbonite mannequin. 4) Excess pressure on the back of his head from the so-'90s rattail he wears. 5) The shock of learning his father was evil guy Cole from "Bachelor Party."
Hayden Christensen reminds me a lot of the character Robert Prescott played in "Bachelor Party," and that's not a good thing. Prescott's supposed to be comically over-the-top in his smugness and arrogance. As I understand the story of "Attack Of The Clones," young Anakin Skywalker is not comic relief. He is challenged by forces within him he can't control, and a sense of outrage at the way things are. He doesn't like being an apprentice, and he doesn't understand why his love for Princess (oops, now Senator) Amidala is not returned. It's a tough part, not Hamlet, but requires a more nuanced delivery than Christensen seems able to provide. Instead he sort of throws up a series of Tiger Beat poses. He sneers. He smirks. He seethes. Petulance is not a trait that makes one like a character. Before this film was over, I felt like yelling "Hurry up and turn to the dark side so I can feel better about hating you!"
Christensen is just one actor, but he is required to carry "Attack of the Clones" in a way no actor has before in the "Star Wars" series. So it's impossible to look past him and say something akin to "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?" Here Christensen is the play.
Getting another actor would have improved things a little, but not too much. The acting in "Attack of the Clones" is across-the-board abysmal. We lose the best in 'Phantom Menace,' Liam Neeson and (except for an embarrassingly clichéd death scene) Pernilla August. The remaining actors, Ewan MacGregor and especially Natalie Portman, slide into a state of near-catatonia. Portman's tight white lycra skinsuit means she's not only sexy but unencumbered by the ornate regalia that limited her projection in "Phantom Menace." So how come she's more wooden than ever? Obviously the direction was a problem. Lucas is legendarily weak at providing acting direction, but every one of the "Star Wars" films until this had at least serviceable performances. This was one of the worst-acted films I have seen, and I saw "Manos: Hands Of Fate."
The annoying trait Lucas has of connecting everything with everything else finally comes a cropper here, after threatening to do so in "Phantom Menace." The Imperial Stormtroopers, it turns out, are cloned knock-offs of the father of one Boba Fett, future bounty hunter supreme. Why him? And why is the guy moonlighting as an assassin and not telling his boss about his sideline activity? We discover Anakin's mother was sold to some moisture farmers on Tatoonie with a suspiciously familiar love of blue milk. So why does someone get the bright idea of stashing away Darth Vader's offspring with the Evil One's own stepbrother, on Darth's home planet? The problem was the first time Lucas threw a connection at us, in 'Empire Strikes Back,' it was undeniably cool, maybe the best thing in the series. Now he can't resist four or five more trips to the well with each new picture. Meanwhile, his galaxy is becoming more inbred than a kennel of pugs.
The story is more a series of set pieces than any in the saga, with no solid "through line" as screenwriters call it. Everyone runs off in different directions, and characters act with sudden bursts of motivation ascribed to strange feelings or catch-what-can. Christopher Lee's Count Dooku (or was that Duke Countoo) shows up as an interesting character that Lucas seems to want to make us wonder about, in a scene where he warns an imprisoned Obi-Wan about the influence of the Dark Side at the helm of the Republic and promises to help get him free. In that scene, he sounds like a renegade, even an ally. But then Dooku drops the charade and just sends Obi-Wan off to die. What was the point of having the scene in the first place? And also, if Dooku is a Jedi of such great skill, shouldn't he or someone in his great army have their sensors on when an armada of starships appears in the sky overhead?
I like some things in the movie. As video wallpaper, it's kind of neat. The Stormtrooper arrival is fun, and Yoda's light saber battle. But the 'Star Wars' fan in me was bitterly disappointed.
I'm sure Episode 3 will explain all these things away, and bring cohesion to Lucas' epic storyline. There's a better way for Lucas to have pulled that off: Stopping the series at "Empire Strikes Back." Am I the only one who wishes he did?