Does this movie even have a pulse?

Rating: 2/10 (25 August 2005)

by Dane Youssef
Um.... did ANYONE like this movie? Anyone, anywhere... ever? This one seems to be ranking right up there with his "Howard the Duck."
But at least people had some kind of strong passion for that one. Any extreme movie (exterme in any way) is a likely candidate for the "cult following." But this one is just boring.
I wanted to kick it as hard as I could, not out of anger, but just to see if it's even alive.
If it is, it's flat-lining.
I remember when George Lucas announce that he was going to release the last three "Star Wars" movies (which ironically were the first three), the whole wide world jumped up.
When "Episode I" was finally released, it was met with lukewarm reviews (from critics and fans alike). From the fair-weather to the hard-core, industrial strength fans.
And everyone in between.
Many people ride Lucas and get on his case about his inability to write dialog (myself included).
Hey, let's face it. The man couldn't write dialog for a mime. Which is why he always hires a script doctor whenever he makes a film from his own screenplay. Hey, this is just called just plain common sense.
Many filmmakers try to re-make the kinds of movies that they first fell in love with when they were young. That not only applies to Lucas, he is the very definition of that. With futuristic Orwell tales ("THX 1138"), period action-adventure summer matinées ("Indianda Jones"), sci-fi space operas ("Star Wars," of course) and medieval sword-and-sorcery flicks ("Willow").
His abilities are in composing a movie lie in production values and state-of-the-art, groundbreaking, revolutionary special effects. Bringing everything about a genre together in one film and playing it to the hilt.
So Lucas brought on Johnathan Hales ("The Scropian King" and TV's "Young Indiana Jones Chronicles") as script doctor. Lucas' wise decision helped them take home the 2002 Razzie Award for Worst Screenplay. Hey, f--- the Oscars.
This was apparently the very first major-motion picture not to be shot on film, but on a special digital video movie camera that SONY designed specifically for Lucas himself.
I saw the movie on DVD, so being shot on digital video and being run on digital video disk, the movie was so sharp and so exact and so precise and so full of detail, I was amazed. When I saw "Episode I" in theaters, it didn't stand out this beautifully.
However, that momentary feeling eventually disintegrated and I was left with a feeling of indifference, then some boredom, then finally contempt.
The first released chapter in the "Star Wars" saga (Episode IV: A New Hope) showed a lot of the movie's themes came from old westerns and samurai pictures. In "Episode II," I got the feeling the movie got a lot of it's inspiration from war movies. You know, "Gettysburg" and the like.
The could make for one hell of a little movie, except for the fact that this one is completely on Valium.
Breaktaking visual scenery and first-rate FX (the entire movie was filmed in front of a blue screen) can't compensate for performances by actors who understandably seem have to have almost no love for a script that could have been written by a coma patient and a director who's far too assured that "it'll all be fixed and filled out in editing and special effects later." I know damned well Hayden Christensen is capable of acting. I've seen it. He seems to be channeling his role from "Life As A House" (no doubt that's why Lucas chose Christensen in the first place.
But the script and lack of direction seem to suck all the potential out of him. He never seems to be truly there at all.
Nor does scholar and sometimes-actress Natalie Portman. I feel kinda guilty saying this and all, but I never truly believed her as a action movie heroine in "Episode I." She just lacks that spunk and fire. You know, the kind that Carrie Fisher really had for almost every second she was on screen, especially when she shared scenes with Ford.
Portman simply can't do a Bidget Fonda or Pam Grier or Karen Allen. She's too sweet and vulnerable. Well, at least she seems more at home here. Although as sweet and beautiful as she is, there is no passion. Not in what she says or anything they do together.
They never seem to be in love so much as just sitting back practicing Shakesphere-style acting and mood for a theater performance.
It's nice to know good IL' Bobby Simone, yes--Jimmy Smits (Of TV's "L.A. Law" and NYPD Blue" fame) is still out there and plugging away as an actor. He gets a bit in here as a Jedi Master on the council.
The only action sequences of any interest throughout take place when a Sith and Jedi masters have a powerful duel which leads to further hate and anger.
The dark side is claiming more and more Jedi by the second.
And all this could've great for another great "Star Wars" classics.
But the movie is has no life or energy. It seems almost indifferent. Like Lucas didn't have his heart (or anything else in this one).
He basically just wanted to get this one out of the way. The only thing he had in this movie is his wallet.
This whole damn movie feels like something he had to just something mandatory he had to get out of the way so he could bridge episodes I and III and continue with the rest of the series.
With the others, you know the filmmakers are giving it everything they had. Here... no one cares. Not even Lucas.
--For Force And Empire, Dane Youssef