Weak "Attack"

Rating: Null/10 (30 November 2002)

There are several things wrong with "Attack of the Clones," but they all add up to one overriding shortcoming: the movie never gets past the fact that the audience already knows how the story ends.
This shouldn't be a problem; indeed, in a better movie, it wouldn't be. "Apollo 13" took a piece of recent history and turned it into a riveting slice of cinema. The recent film adaptations of "Harry Potter" and "Lord of the Rings" create enchanting versions of stories already beloved in print format. The original "Star Wars" trilogy tells its good-vs-evil yarn with great energy and charm. But these films draw us in with their storytelling; with "Clones," we end up wishing the characters would get on with it.
It doesn't help that our intended protagonist is so unlikable. Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christiansen), the boy who would be Vader, is theoretically a vulnerable young man in the first stages of a fall from grace, except he doesn't have much grace to fall from. Only once did I even remotely feel this was a basically good person who would become so consumed with anger and fear of helplessness as to be seduced to the Dark Side--the rest of the time, he comes off as an insolent, bratty kid who needs nothing so much as a good smack upside the head. That Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) sees anything in this boy (especially with Ewan McGregor's appealing Obi-Wan Kenobi so close at hand) is perhaps testament to the truth that love is blind. The amour between Anakin and Padme seems less like an earth-shaking passion and more like the sort of relationship people have for a few months before moving on to better and more meaningful things.
The supporting cast--McGregor, Christopher Lee as the villian, and Frank Oz again providing Yoda's voice--show some promise, but they're stuck in a poor attempt of political intrigue as various factions attempt to fuel or prevent a civil war. The action sequences are generally good, with the exception of a final battle that goes on for far too long, leaving us to wistfully wish for the better adventures that take place in this galaxy far, far away.