An uneven film with few highs, many lows

Rating: 5/10 (18 May 2002)

While most seem to feel that this was an improvement over The Phantom Menace, I found AOTC to be much more flawed overall. Granted, there were some real highs, what I call "fanboy moments" such as the visuals, the battles, Yoda, the Fetts, and Ewan's much-improved performance as Obi-Wan. Unfortunately, the movie is filled with terrible dialogue, uneven pacing, unforgiveably bad edits, and a horribly hacked edit of a wonderful music score (make that two, since they re-used so much music from TPM).
The romance element is unconvincing, almost creepy, due to inept performances by Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen. I can only assume that the director himself is to blame, considering that both performers have done so much better in other films, and Christensen as Anakin does have one brief shining moment late in the film.
Of course, one doesn't come to Star Wars looking for fine art. But even as a "summer blockbuster" and "come to be entertained" kind of film, sitting through the bad bits makes it hard to enjoy the great bits when they come. Nothing in the original trilogy was this bad, and even the vilified "Phantom Menace" had a fraction of the clunkers to be found in "Clones". Although there are classic moments that rank amongst the highest in the Star Wars series in AOTC, the uneven elements ultimately make it the most disappointing entry in the series.