Its No Empire but it is entertaining

Rating: 8/10 (19 September 2003)

My Rating: *** out of ****.
Attack Of The Clones is an entertaining movie, but out of all the Star Wars films it is the most flawed. Some people thought this was superior to Episode I, I am not one of them. Make no mistake I liked Episode II because I enjoyed it but it is plagued with problems.
The acting is a definite weakness here, the Star Wars movies are not movies where you see first-rate performances, but the acting is quite bad at times. Natalie Portman is completely unconvincing. Hayden Christiansen performance is pretty wooden. I amit Jake Lloyd was occasionally annoying in Episode I but he overall did his job. Ewan McGregor is adequate here. Yoda is actually the main star in the film.
The big problem I have with this movie is the romance. I know this was not going to be up to the likes of Casablanca. Any idiot could have figured that out. But the dialogue is cringingly awful and Portman and Christiansen have no chemistry. The romance scenes are unbearable. However, the rest of the movie is quite good and entertaining. There are some similarities to Empire but I was able to enjoy the movie anyway.
Where AOTC reigns is the Special effects. The Special Effects are quite brilliant. The action scenes are spectacular. There are so many standouts its impossible to name them all. George Lucas is losing his talent as a filmmaker but I still will be looking forward to Episode III.