Clones rocking fun

Rating: 6/10 (17 May 2002)

Sure the acting is wooden, the dialogue weak, but Star Wars succeeds in the only area it needs to. It is a spectacularly fun romp. There are some cheesy one-liners that leave the movie-goers laughing. People and critics tend to forget that the original Star Wars trilogy does not invoke memories of great acting or dialogue. In fact, the acting in the first trilogy was attrotious, but it didn't matter. The true star of any and all Star Wars films have been the special effects, the non-human actors. This trilogy is missing the formidable villian that Darth Vader was in the first trilogy, but the torment that Anikan is having not over his feelings for Amidala but over his feelings of anger and frustration come across well enough to give that foreboding of doom that surrounds his character. There is some zingy dialogue that foreshadows events that occur in the first trilogy, like when Obi-Wan tells his Padawan learner, Anakin -- well, you'll just have to see it. I don't want to ruin one of the few dialogue moments in the movie. There are very few dialogue moments. Obi-Wan has that one. Mace has one later in the film as does Yoda. Yoda is the best part of this film and his scenes along with the scenes involving Jango Fett and his clone son, Boba are among the best. The climactic battle scene is so filled with energy that I feel that I must see the film again because I know I missed half of what was going on film. I wrote a review for Spider-Man not to long ago where I said that Spider-Man failed on the level that it needed to succeed in the action aspect. Spider-Man succeeds where Star Wars does not on a dialogue, acting level. If you combined the two you would have the perfect movie. George Lucas is not an actor's director. He gets better performances from his special effects than his actors. That is the way he directs. For that matter, who really cares? The performances do not need to to be Laurence Olivier quality. The best performance given by any actor in the whole series was by Alec Guiness and that's only because he's one of the finest actors that ever lived and did not need a whole lot of direction. Young actors like Portman, McGregor, and Christensen need direction. McGregor gave an outstanding performance in last year's Moulin Rouge. Portman has been outstanding in various films. These are not bad actors. They just didn't get the direction they needed to fulfil their characters. I'm still not sold on why Amidala would be in love with Christensen. It would seem to me that she may be sort of sickened by his actions when going to save his mother. My disbelief can be linked back to Episode I where it is difficult to imagine Portman's sexy Amidala with the young 9-year-old Anakin. Nevertheless, this is a great movie that doesn't rely too heavily on the love story the way Spider-Man did. This movie relies on gun fights, chases, exploding starships, light saber duels, which includes one of the most unlikely duel of the series and one of the most satisfying. I wouldn't dare to ruin it for anyone, so I won't. Bottom line, this film succeeds where it needs to and fails where it has never mattered before and still doesn't. I mean, did anyone really go to see a Star Wars movie to find out if Han and Leia end up together. That love story was as poorly written as this one and who cares.