wasn't as bad as I remember

Rating: 6/10 (23 January 2018)

Star Wars: Episode II- Attack of the Clones is a film that never left an impact on me. I couldn't get passed the heavy political exposition nor the prolonged romantic scenes with Anakin and Padme. Well I gave it another look for the first time in a long time and honestly it wasn't as bad as I remember.
There's elements I still despise about the movie, the most noteworthy being the terribly written romantic dialogue straight out of Twilight. George Lucas never displayed much strength in writing dialogue but this is a new low. Another thing that bores me is the heavy exposition, which was also an issue with its precursor. I know it's a story about political schemes and trade negotiations so it's hard to depict it excitingly, but maybe this wasn't the best story to go with?
George Lucas also got a bit lazy with directing this film due to his reliance on green screen effects and oh boy have they not aged well... You can tell the lighting isn't right in areas since the light seems to be constantly lit above the actors. The CG also hasn't aged well and there are times where it looks like actors are walking in front of screen savers.
I addressed this in my Phantom Menace review but I'll say it again, it wasn't the acting that bothered me about the prequels, it was the dialogue. Ewan is fantastic as Obi-Wan, he is witty and captures that Alec Guinness persona. Natalie Portman is perfectly fine, so is all of the supporting cast. And I can hear you all saying 'what about Hayden Christenson?' The fact is Anakin is meant to be a naive and confused adolescent who has difficulty controlling his emotions. Does Hayden portray that? Yes. It's easy to confuse this with bad acting especially with the cringy dialogue. I'm just defending these actors because they aren't the problem with the movie... it's the script.
The Jedi arena climax is quite epic and you get the sense these are the Jedi's in their prime before the majority of them were wiped out by Order 66. However the same can't be said about the concluding lightsaber duel which compared to the last movie is excruciatingly terrible. Yoda flipping around makes no sense considering his age. I know it's a Jedi requirement to have a lightsaber, however, he's a 900 year old creature and there's no evidence of his ability to wield a lightsaber in the original trilogy.
It's not the god awful film I made it out to be all those years ago. It definitely has strong moments like the Clone army origins, the Jango fight fight scene and the emotional turmoil of Anakin as he slaughters Sand People. Although this remains to be the worst of the prequel trilogy but in all honesty... it's still better than Rogue One and The Last Jedi.