STAR WARS II: FINAL FANTASY, THE FORCE WITHIN

Rating: 4/10 (22 May 2002)

*WARNING!* There may be spoilers in this review!
I went into this movie with reasonably high expectations, having heard that it was vastly superior to the Deplorable Episode 1. My expectations were lowered after witnessing the first trailer (It consisted of something resembling a Roswell romance). The second trailer showed loads of wow-wee explosions, light saber fights and cool Imperial Star Destroyer-looking ships, so up went my expectations again.
W H A T... H A P P E N E D... ? ? ? ! ?
Hayden Whats-his-name happened, That's what! I have not seen a worse actor since John Revolta's performance in Battlefield Earth. The man can't act his way out of a toilet cubicle and his attempts to be angry and menacing were just not convincing. (And THIS geek Annie is supposed to be Darth Vader!?) He literally buckles under the weight of this C.G.I cartoon-fest, and boy, does it show during his perfunctionary 'love scenes'! (Gag)
There are situations in this flick that are meant to be 'heart wrenching', ie when Annie has a nightmare-about-his-mommy-while-he's-asleep-in-bed that just came out a total joke - it looked more like he was having a wet dream about Padme (And induced audience laughter!)
Padme is no better. She looks pretty (of course) but why did the buck have to stop right there? She does nothing except wait to be rescued, or wait to be woo'ed by a really creepy, clingy Annie. She does nothing assertive until two thirds of the way into the flick. By that time, it's such an unbelievable change of her character I didn't buy into it.

In Episode 1 Padme was this dignified queen focused on saving her planet from the nasty bad Trade Federation. In Episode II she's magically transformed into a Britney Spears wannabe with trade-mark bare midriff and has about the same amount of zero dignity to go with it. (It's no wonder, Annie is smitten with a politician-turned galactic pop-queen diva!).

It's obvious George Lucas has tried to make Star Wars II the science fiction version of Titanic, and it's totally flopped in that department. When I watch a Star Wars flick, I don't want to watch two spoons rolling around in a field of hay surrounded by rainbows and waterfalls and tick-like elephant-beasts. I don't want to hear awful speeches proclaiming how much he loves her when it sounds so utterly fake. I also don't want to see 'teenage romance cliche No# 90210'.
The audience I sat with (we got a free screening) laughed and groaned at the horrible romantic plot and it was totally funny listening to the comments being made by movie goers around me.
If these boring romantic elements had been removed, I'm sure the rest of the flick would've been a whole heap better. The non-stop C.G.I is nice, but becomes head-ache inducing and boring after 2 and a half hours. I did like the other Jedi main characters and the bounty hunter Fetts were O.K. I also liked the nice street scenes on Coruscant, (note: NOT the too-long air car chase rubbish) and the funky alien (Coruscantian?) writing on the billboards and stuff.
CONCLUSION?
Mr Lucas severely needs to concentrate on character development instead of never ending cartoon C.G.I. He should also ditch the romance element completely! I found this movie NOT much better than Episode 1, just more of the same brainless action and C.G.I explosions and battles. Mr Lucas can do better than this.
4/10