Better story, same problems (Spoiler Alert)

Rating: 5/10 (19 May 2002)

Infinitely better than the last outing, but that's still damning it with faint praise. To be fair, there are some wonderful moments here: the thrilling bounty hunter chase through Coruscant; Obi-Wan and Jango's rain-soaked one-on-one; and the chillingly vicious Lightsaber Round Robin finale  Yoda's 'Matrix'-style moves notwithstanding. Jar Jar is mercifully relegated to the minor (and rather apt) role of unwitting traitor, and Christopher Lee brings some much needed gravitas to the whole affair. Though the story drags in places, it's reasonably well-structured, balancing the action with the necessary (though soggy) romance. And the motivation for Anakin's descent into evil is credible, even if Hayden Christensen's performance isn't. Yet, once again, Lucas sabotages what could have been his masterpiece with what is now clearly a CGI-obsession bordering on clinical insanity. Entire sequences, such as the droid assembly line (Coming soon to a Playstation near you!) and the 'Gladiator'-inspired arena battle, are plainly motivated by nothing more than the desire to do something cool with effects. But they aren't cool. They're mind-numbingly boring. The climactic battle between droids and clones is so self-consciously spectacular that the audience is left feeling more alienated than engaged. Sure, CGI played a role in every scene in this film  even the ones I loved. But that wasn't what I loved about them. For me, it was one or two of the humans who nearly saved the day. In particular, the performance of Ewan McGregor, with his wryly humorous Alec Guinness impersonation and his ability to wring some semblance of credibility from even the most banal of Lucas's lines, was almost enough to salvage the entire production. But not quite.