Hayden Christensen IS Jake Lloyd

Rating: 5/10 (16 May 2002)

I simply can't believe that Hayden Christensen was cast in this role. He is absolutely atrocious, and makes the wooden Natalie Portman look like Audrey Hepburn. The two have NO chemistry--they get together because the plot requires it. The dialogue is hackneyed from beginning to end, and if not for Ian McDiarmid and Christopher Lee, no human actor would stand out at all...(Ewan MacGregor tries, but he can only do so much with lines like "my Padawan still has much to learn.") The only heart in the movie comes from the digital actors--Yoda (who is unfortunately a source of unintentional comedy at the movie's climax), Watto, that fat fry cook at the beginning, and god forbid, even Jar Jar. George actually lets them ACT...what a concept.
Attack of the Clones looks and sounds great, but the action scenes now run together in my mind like a blur, and most seem like commercials for the upcoming video games (particularly the scene in the Droid factory). I never felt that the characters were ever in true danger.
Wouldn't Anakin have been a better character if he was a Han Solo-type in this film--a swaggering, charming, hothead that's difficult not to like? Of course, but nowadays Lucas take his story so seriously that the main characters are humorless, and deadly earnest--and the light touch is left up to the strictly-comic relief droids (and I'm sorry to say that the C-3PO/R2-D2 schtick is really starting to get old, and is very much out of place in the epic final battle).
All in all, the movie is clearly a spectacle, but is it good? Unfortunately, I can't say for certain...I'm afraid this movie will always bring with it for me the thoughts of what might have been.