You have got to be kidding!

Rating: 1/10 (30 May 2002)

Is this really all that $130 million buys these days? This was junk. The special effects don't even look good. The writing? I beg of you, Mr. Lucas, please PLEASE let someone else write the next installment. And as for originality, could the movie have ripped off THE FIFTH ELEMENT any more (and done it worse?)? -- I sure hope they forked over some serious cash to Luc Besson, because they are HIS creatures (minus the robots that were borrowed from AI).
A year before this film came out, the movie going public punished a film by Steven Spielberg called AI. People just didn't go to see a film about a robot boy trying to become human. I guess people would rather opt for "entertainment" such as ATTACK OF THE CLONES or THE SCORPION KING, films where there is an abhorrent lack of original thought. And sure, George Lucas has come out saying that measuring anything against the original three films of the STAR WARS series is unfair because of how good they really are. What does that say? That now we should be happy enough to settle for something less than great? That we should be happy forking over $10 so that some centillionaire out in CA can play with digital images and completely forego any script? Well, Mr. Lucas, your plan would work if not for your friend Mr. Spielberg. Unlike Mr. Lucas, Mr. Spielberg seems to find new and exciting ways to challenge himself and his audience -- and if one were to go by AIs box office performance, one would say that he is, unfortunately, losing the fight. To paraphrase "You are what you watch." Keep paying Mr. Lucas for utter crap like this and I'm sure he'll be more than happy to keep feeding it to you.