Star Wars Episode 2, Attack of the action Scenes

Rating: 6/10 (17 January 2019)

Star Wars Episode 2 is the bridge between the discovery of the chosen one and his ultimate fall to the darkside. It is the painstaking transition which could be described as the puberty phase of Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen). Throughout the film the audience must watch his awkward, forced transition through his emotional struggles of balancing his responsibilities with his awkward love life all while keeping it a secret as the Jedi order is not supposed to form attachments.
The movie starts with the classic Star Wars crawl informing the reader of the complicated politics of a new vote to create a real army for the republic in order to not simply continue overusing a peace force with no allegiances. After the iconic crawl, the movie fades in with a few ships coming in to land similar but not identical to how the original Star Wars movie did. It quite literally drops the bomb with an explosive opening paired with poor emotional acting which is sadly a very recurring theme throughout the movie.
After the first attack on Queen Amidala, Anakin and Obi Wan are assigned to manage the investigation and to protect the queen form more attacks. Another attempt is made on her life and after a thrilling chase sequence with beautiful props such as weapons, ships, and even costumes the would be assassin is captured in the clubs of Coruscant which surprisingly are very visually pleasing and fit the aesthetic of a futuristic club perfectly. After this attack, Obi Wan sends Anakin, his apprentice, to keep the queen safe by taking her to another planet in order for him to pursue the new lead he discovered in a very odd way with the help of an old comical friend.
The movie then jumps between Anakin and Obi Wan's stories. It turns out that Anakin's version of "protecting" is flirting with the Queen even though he is not supposed to. Natalie Portman makes a good attempt at appearing to fall in love with Anakin and through the action scenes of them going on supposed "dates" it is believable at first that they are actually falling in love. However, after these action scenes showing the audience their love for eachother, the script writing takes a great fall and ruins this impression of their love by creating awkward flirtatious moments and even more questionable arguments between the two destined lovers. One scene where the acting and script written was particularly bad was when he tried to use his hatred for sand in an attempt to flirt with Queen Amidala. This particular scene highlights how the script writing ruins the immersion in their love story. Although it is attempting to do the right thing by showing an emotional moment and a deeper connection to the viewer Anakins (Hayden Christensen) delivery lacks the emotional weight needed to portray the love correctly. With Anakin's back story of being a slave who grew up on a desert planet this conversation makes since but there were much better and pressing issues that could have been used such as the weight of his responsibilities to the Jedi or even how he misses being able to see his mother.
This new lead that Obi Wan is pursuing comes to a very surprising discovery and does well to pull the story back to the intro screen crawl. After some more investigating, Obi Wan is lead to a new planet and partakes in a dramatic ship versus ship battle and even though there is no sound in space the score and sound effects are spot on as he out whits his opponent. Continuing following this lead, it leads to him being captured and causes Anakin and Amidala to go against the Jedi foreshadowing how he will eventually leave them one day. This does a magnificent job of portraying Anakin's character and ultimately bringing back together the main characters and tying the two stories together for a very action pack conclusion of the original screen crawl but to the substories within the movie all while preparing keeping the viewer on the edge of their seat waiting for the next episode.
I would say this movie is a quality star wars film when it comes to the action and adventure aspects but where it fall from glory is with the poor script writing and portrayal of Anakin not as the future Darth Vader but as an immature boy who is very gifted but being held back and not allowed to grow as he wants to. This also was supposed to be the love story of how the parents of future Luke and Leia fell in love and instead we were given an awkward and forced love story that left us questioning why they ever loved each other in the first place. Overall, If you like Star Wars for what it is meant to be: a thrilling, emotionally packed struggle between good and bad you will love this movie as a build up for the next chapter but if you are looking for a more well structured love story such as twilight this is not the movie for you.