Attack of the Clones:An Improvement Over The Phantom Menace

Rating: 9/10 (14 January 2012)

The second prequel to the original Star Wars trilogy takes place ten years after the events depicted in Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace.Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones is an epic space opera film directed by George Lucas and written by Lucas and Jonathan Hales. It is the fifth film to be released in the Star Wars saga and the second in terms of the series' internal chronology.
Now 20, young Anakin Skywalker is an apprentice to respected Jedi knight Obi-Wan Kenobi. Unusually powerful in the Force, Anakin is also impatient, arrogant, and headstrong -- causing his mentor a great deal of concern. The pair are ordered to protect Padme Amidala, the former queen of the planet Naboo, now representing her world in the Galactic Senate. Someone is trying to assassinate her on the eve of a vote enabling Supreme Chancellor Palpatine to build a military force that will safeguard against a growing separatist movement led by mysterious former Jedi Count Dooku. After another attempt on Padme's life, Obi-Wan and Anakin separate. The young Jedi and Padme fall in love as he escorts her first to the security of Naboo and then to his home world of Tatooine, where the fate of his mother leads him to commit an ominous atrocity. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan travels to the secretive planet Kamino and the asteroid-ringed world of Geonosis, following bounty hunter Jango Fett and his son, Boba, who are involved in an operation to create a massive army of clones. A vicious battle ensues between the clones and Jedi on one side and Dooku's droids on the other, but who is really pulling the strings in this galactic conflict?
Clones is far from perfect, but when it clicks, it revives the old spirit that made a generation become so obsessed with all things Star Wars in the first place.While it lacks the quality of Empire's script and performances, it is the most visually enthralling of the series so far.It is certainly better than the childish Phantom Menace and the magic has definitely been recaptured.The acting was good as Christensen is a winning mix of sultry and sulky as the now older Anakin, while McGregor is finally beginning to relax as the mentor who understandably refuses to treat his moody pupil like a grown-up.But they all end up being upstaged by the jaw-dropping skills of a CGI creation: Yoda. Lucas has never been able to conjure another Han Solo, a character who could, with simply a wink, remind us that this was just an overgrown Saturday afternoon serial and worse a sort of movie we once loved and then outgrew. Although the scale of it is thrilling,it's too bad the movie is so muddled on so many different levels.But nevertheless,it was an improvement over The Phantom Menace.