Disappointingly mediocre.

Rating: 5/10 (16 May 2002)

George Lucas, it should be noted, has gotten some things right in "Attack of the Clones". He minimized the screen time of most of the more offensive and irritating characters from Episode I -- namely (Rastafarian refugee) Jar Jar Binks and the (Nipponese Empire) Trade Federation executives. He also managed to jettison cutesy Jake Lloyd.
Unfortunately, he also dumped most of the good lightsaber fights, and kept his wooden directorial style. Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor -can- do fantastic acting work, as evidenced in movies like "Trainspotting" and "The Professional" and "Beautiful Girls". But with a cliche-ridden, shallow script and a decrepit fool in the director's chair, even the best of actors and actresses are dragged down into the mud.
Co-written by Lucas and Jonathan ("The Scorpion King") Hales, the script has all the energy of three-day-old roadkill. It's rife with cheesy slapstick bits, recycled dialogue, and predictable plotting. The special effects are serviceable, but fairly obvious to anyone with an experienced eye. The lightsaber duels are pedestrian compared to the dynamic, quick-moving duels of "The Phantom Menace" (or even of "The Empire Strikes Back"), with the slight acrobatic exception of Yoda, master of Jedi-Fu.
Lucas needs to be chained up well away from the typewriter and director's chair. Give someone else the basics to write from, and let someone else helm the next episode. Perhaps those others can move the series away from the less-than-impressive spectacles that Lucas's meddling has brought to pass. After all, it worked for "The Empire Strikes Back".