Worse not Better

Rating: 5/10 (5 May 2006)

Maybe I'm in a minority but I really didn't think this was an improvement on the hugely disappointing Phantom Menace, in fact I probably enjoyed this less. Star Wars shouldn't be boring but the first two episodes of the prequel trilogy most definitely are. Apart from marginalising Jar Jar Binks, Lucas again produced a lacklustre movie that failed to live up to the high standards of the original trilogy. It's amazing how everything came together for the original trilogy whereas this time Lucas makes one bad decision after another- probably not helped by yes men such as producer Rick McCallum. After unforgivably starting with Anakin as a child in the first prequel, Lucas then fails to pick an actor without the necessary gravitas or spark to breathe life into the character, instead we get Hayden Christenen, just as wooden and charmless as Jake Lloyd. Of course the actors job isn't helped by the appalling dialogue and Lucas surpasses even himself in writing some of the most vomit inducing lines ever to be inflicted on an audience. The romance between Anakin and Padme suffers the worst, with some truly cringe worthy scenes that are painful to watch. A far cry from the Han and Leia relationship which was a million miles away from the forced and charmless union of Ankin and Padme. One of the main reasons I looked forward to the prequels was the chance to see the hinted at Clone Wars. After being denied that in the first movie the audience is again left to rue a missed opportunity. Instead the film takes forever to set up the Clone Wars with Obi Wan Kenobi going on some dull mission which makes no sense to most viewers, whilst there's a lot of politicians on Coruscant arguing about whether they should or shouldn't have an army. To add insult to injury we find that when the Clonetroopers do finally appear their CGI'd rather than the good old fashioned real living breathing Stormtroopers of old. The effects on a whole seem to be worse than that of The Phantom Menace. There's a lot of shoddy effects,with the end battle feeling like a computer game. Christopher Lee pops up as Count Dooku and gives the film some much needed weight, but its a case of too little too late. The simple fact is the prequel trilogy could and should have surpassed the originals, it has a stronger story, a greater character arc, tragedy and a boot load of action, instead Lucas has frittered it away. The man who's genius bore the story of Star Wars makes a real mess at creating the fall of the republic and the rise of the empire. If he had worked with a good screen writer, got the script polished and used different directors like he had before I'm in no doubt the Prequels would have been a triumph. Sadly that was not to be.