Better than expected - worse than it could have been...

Rating: 5/10 (20 May 2002)

So here it is the new Star Wars movie. I really didn't have any high hopes after the Jar Jar Binks disaster (and insult) which Episode I was. So I could not get disappointed too hard this time, and could enjoy the positive elements of Episode II which were:

JarJar Binks playing only a marginal (but still unendurable) role

No word of Midichlorians (thanks George for no further un-mystifying your lifework)

Family Fett

First signs of Anakin becoming evil

Lots of Jedi Knights in action

Yoda

C3PO getting into shape (verbally and physically)

The music used like in an opera, applying well known Leitmotifs for Anakin (Darth Vader), the Emperor or the Imperial army

The finale, which was done a little bit like the whole movie should have been done: Bad tidings for the righteous, a great evil unraveling, a dark and frightening atmosphere and the first appearance of the dreaded Imperial war machinery.

There were major let-downs as well:

The love scenes between Anakin and Amidala (terribly cheesy like out of a Jane Austen movie gone bad)

The German voice of Hayden Christensen is terrible!!!!

Too many action scenes, some of them way too long (robot factory for example - this one looked more like out of Monsters Inc. than out of a serious SciFi movie)

Story development - is there any? - going veeeeery slow, at least half of the movie people are just going from one planet to another following other persons who are themselves following still other persons - this is NOT enough for a decent Science Fiction movie. The evil plot of Darth Sidious stays a little too much in the background.

All in all this one is better than Episode I, due to the lack of utter silliness which made Episode I so hard too swallow. There are some very nice touches and some really well done passages, the Jedi Knights are finally shown in there full grandeur - this is good. But the love story really fails to get the viewers interest and makes the movie very slow in the first 60 minutes.
All in all: More story, fewer Disney-like action scenes and a love story done right would have made this a really great movie.