The Worst of all the Star Wars Movies

Rating: 5/10 (28 December 2012)

Attack of the Clones hit the theaters a week after the first Spiderman movie did. It was after watching the two movies one after the other that it hit me as to why I didn't like the Star Wars movies anymore (and why I loved the first two in particular so much). Spiderman had good dialog, a compelling story, and interesting characters who I cared about. Conversely, in Clones I didn't give a damn what happened to anyone in it. In all three "prequel" movies we see George Lucas' journey into special effects and cartoon character/CGI excess, but it's on display the most here..or maybe it's just that the dialog and characters are so weak that it just seems like it (Sith takes the prize for the most bells and whistles effects-wise). I realized that without fun, likable good guys and interesting bad guys to root for and against, all the effects and shoot 'em ups are pretty boring. Make that REALLY boring. And then Lucas tries to do a love story on top of that and proceeds to butcher it (I remember when he used to be able to direct..think the first Star Wars and American Graffiti). You should be able to do something with a doomed love affair to make it interesting, and Lucas does everything he can to suck the life out of it. Anakin Skywalker and Padme are so boring (and in the case of Anakin, irritating) that you wonder how they could possibly be Luke and Leia's real parents (switched at birth perhaps?) I also fault the performances, and Hayden Christenson's portrayal of Anakin in particular, but in his defense he had nothing to work with script-wise. The only remotely interesting character is Christopher Lee's too-little-seen Count Dooku. Otherwise, it's Lucas and his world of CGI cartoon characters and video-game action sequences. And Ewan McGregor is NO Alec Guinness.