Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) - Review

Rating: Null/10 (19 September 2015)

So, we arrive at Attack of the Clones, the worst named film in the whole saga but there is hope, surely George Lucas leaned from all the mistakes he made with The Phantom Menace, right?
Well, not really, he did however listen to the fans when it came to Jar Jar, he is largely absent from the film and I also love that it was him who can be directly blamed for putting more power into Palpatine's hands. No, this film makes a lot of the same mistakes as The Phantom Menace made and it also makes whole new ones. Back is the terrible dialogue, wooden acting and even more CGI, though this time it has aged a little better. They are joined by the truly terrible performance of Hayden Christensen as Anakin, the worst love story in the history of film and the unnecessary ruining of Boba Fett, let's get into it.
We all know that Lucas likes to cast unknowns and this is usually a good idea as you only see the character but for the love of god, cast unknowns who can actually act. Hayden's performance is so bad, there is no subtlety to him at all, he's always shouting and my god, I'll talk about his creepy romantic face a little later. The only moment that he is good in is his scene with his mother as she is dying and his subsequent murdering of the Tusken Raiders, this is a truly great moment that still gives me chills a little. It's ruined a little though by the scene after it where he tells Padmé all about it and his acting goes back to its usual standard.
Lets talk about that love story, this is truly terrible, first we have the fact that Anakin has been obsessively thinking about her for the last 10 years and when they do finally meet up again he's a complete creep. It's even implied early on that he was spying on her in her bedroom on the security cameras. Once they get off to their romantic retreat on Naboo things only get worse, Lucas seems to think that the primary ingredient to falling in love is just beautiful surroundings, which admittedly they are. The big issue though is the complete lack of chemistry between Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman and the fact that every word they have to speak to each other is terribly written. Another thing, the love theme that John Williams composed for these two is absolutely beautiful, its a shame its wasted on them.
Another thing I feel is a big issue is that while these two are off on this romantic interlude Anakin is separate from Obi-Wan. They spend most of the film apart and when they are together they are bickering and moaning at each other. The film and the trilogy as a whole would have been better served by building up their relationship more and showing some camaraderie between them.
Anyway, what's Obi-Wan up to when all this garbage is happening. He's on his own little detective side quest that's actually really entertaining. He winds up on the planet Kamino where a mysterious clone army has been made without anyone knowing about it. This all seems highly suspicious but everyone just goes with it and doesn't question it, stellar writing George. We meet Jango Fett and much like C-3PO's link to Anakin this is George making the universe smaller again and ruining the mystique of Boba Fett in the process, it does lead to a pretty sweet fight between Obi-Wan and Jango though.
Speaking of C-3PO, he makes a return and takes Jar Jar's place as the comic relief that is completely unfunny, the scenes of his head attached to a battle droid's body are painful to watch.
While all this is going on we are hearing about this Count Dooku but never seeing him, in fact he doesn't show up until over halfway though, which is a little odd but when he does he is pretty cool. Christopher Lee is a class act and has a great screen presence, all this leads to the best part of the film and its primary saving grace.
A massive battle happens and we get to see the Jedi in action as a group for the first time ever and it's spectacular, it's a long final act that has heaps going on. It's probably the best ground battle in the whole saga, there is a particularly awesome shot of a ship falling from the sky and kicking up a huge dust cloud. We see the view from inside the cloud of droids and clones shooting at each other and it is visually very impressive.
Of course it wouldn't be Star Wars without a duel at the end, we get Anakin and Obi-Wan fighting Dooku and its a bit lackluster and over very quickly but that's because they were just the warm up act. Yoda shows up and a pretty cool fight ensues, I never had an issue with Yoda fighting with a lightsaber like some have but I'm not a huge fan of the way he screams as he's jumping around.
We also get a couple of scenes between Anakin and Palpatine and we see that Palpatine is grooming him and has become a sort of mentor to him, this is great, Palpatine's manipulations are even more entertaining to watch here, we see that he is playing both sides in the war to his own ends and it sets up the final film of the trilogy well.
There ends Attack of the Clones, the clone wars have begun and Anakin has taken his first steps towards the dark side.
It may have sounded like I was tearing this film to shreds but I actually prefer it to The Phantom Menace, I think, the end action is really awesome.