A strictly personal attempt to point out the good and bad things about Episode II :

Rating: 7/10 (18 April 2005)

Let me start by saying that judging Star Wars is a though call. One half of humanity would gladly see you digested by the pit-monster from episode VI if you dare to say one bad thing about it? apart from "the dialog will never live up to Shakespeare". The other half would like to see the first half digested for maintaining their support to a mindless superficial franchise.
THE GOOD Attack of the Clones (AOTC) stands somewhere in the middle between the original trilogy and the 21st century-styled colourful look of The Phantom Menace (TPM). It succeeds rather well in combining the polished tabloids of modern CGI with the grim atmosphere of the seventies. Whereas TPM relied too much on weak humour and philosophical talk, AOTC has largely reduced the intentional laughs to the traditional buddy comedy between 3CPO and R2D2 and replaced it with a number of solid action scenes. In chronological order: an entertaining high-speed chase through the higher levels of Coruscant, a showoff between Obi-WAn and the bounty hunter which nicely combines light sabers and conventional laser weapons, a composite battle between Jedi/clones & droids & a classic showdown between the villain and the primary heroes of the play.
The "Jedi battle" deserves a special mentioning as it continues the gradual display of Jedi fighting power throughout the series. We started off with the senior Obi-Wan and the unexperienced Luke Skywalker. The Only one to reveal a glimpse of a trained Jedi's fighting skills was Darth Vader, but he couldn't release his full potential without depriving the audience of good guys, hehe. TPM gave us the first combat between healthy, well-trained Jedi. AOTC takes it one step further. Although some think politics are out of place in Star WArs, AOTC does manage to put the rise of the Empire more clearly with a minimal amount of senatorial dispute. Besides, the movie as a whole establishes more connections to the later events of the original trilogy than TPM, which got me stuck on the discovery of Anakin. Especially smooth is the use of cloning to explain why the Empire prefers men over robots to do its dirty work, just because the techniques weren't advanced enough to orchestrate massive droid armies.
THE BAD The dialog and the acting, although that last part is hard to deliver with some class when you're talking to blue screens all the time. Which brings up the concept of CGI overkill. Landscapes, ships and aliens look beautiful, but when you add a single "real" element in the form of a human actor, it always makes me feel like they're humiliated fossils in a computer world. The problem with these complaints is you can't fix them: actors are needed to add something to the graphics, Force philosophy lines will always sound forced, whereas theatrical conversation would look silly.
*** In my opinion, Ewan Mc Gregor portrays the evolution of his character nicely (he's grown mature, but has a better understanding of a padawan's troublings than his own master) and Anakin ( sorry, i never memorized the guy) is competent by means of showing how he could transform into Vader at a later age: scared by his youth and the death of his mother, therefor less controlled in using his powers. By nature he does seem to have an inferiority complex and a short temper with attached disbelief in democracy.
THE UGLY In spite of the good links in AOTC, i fear Episode III will either display too many or too little events leading up to Episode IV. Samuel L. Jackson is waisted on Star Wars. He never gets to say anything besides simple lines or Force-gibberish a mediocre actor can handle sufficiently. I also pity Christopher Lee getting trapped in this, but then again, he brings his character to life.
Grading this wasn't easy, either. Take two points for never being as good as a 50's classic and one point for BAD/UGLY flaws.