Much Hype, Little Content

Rating: 4/10 (18 May 2002)

Attack of the Clones is an appropriate title for this exsanguinated rehashing of The Empire Strikes Back. The acting is positively wooden, with the solitary decent performance being turned in by Christopher Lee as Dooku. Any film in which Samuel Jackson comes across with the cinematic texture of oatmeal needs some better writing behind it; what a waste of talent! Annikin Skywalker is played as a whiny little brat who deserves a good spanking, and suddenly Obi Wan has become a tremendous bumbler. Yoda, who spends his time walking with a cane, is suddenly capable of aerial backflips. A hackneyed attempt at comic relief is provided by the C3PO/R2D2 droid combo, but there's no reason for them to be in the movie. Its an obvious device and it doesn't work.
Make no mistake, this is purely a special effects movie that sticks closely to the formula that's emerged in the last four Star Wars films. There's absolutely nothing original here; we've seen it all before. Even the famous canteen scene from the first Star Wars movie is trotted out yet again. In fact, the entire first half of this movie plods along without a single new or challenging element, and Lucas cuts back and forth between two story lines that further slows the film and comes across as amateurish and heavy-handed.
Everyone will see this movie. It will make a bazillion dollars and there will be more sequels. Seeing the latest Star Wars film has become a cultural mandate; Lucas has successfully marketed these movies past the point where they need to be quality cinema in order to attract an audience. While this film is definitely a step above Episode I: The Phantom Menace, it lacks the sense of fun and adventure in the first couple of installments in the series. It plays like a self-conscious attempt at being important, but it comes out more like an all-too-long documentary on "The Creatures of Star Wars" with a few good battle scenes thrown into the mix.
I'm glad to see this movie isn't making as much as "Spiderman." Frankly, its not nearly as good. Personally I'm going to wait to hear more about the next Star Wars movie before I bother to go and see it; the last two have been bad enough that I'm at a point where I'm not at all eager to see more sequels. The series has become so formulaic and predictable that I feel like I've already seen them. Why pay money for it?