Glossing over a lack of imagination

Rating: 3/10 (23 May 2002)

This has to be the most highly awaited and disappointing movie since Episode 1. George Lucas has failed to recompense the paying public for the sham of a film that was The Phantom Menace, by producing yet another stomach-churningly lame excuse of a film.
Hoping to distract the audience with impressive scenery and the occasional piece of imaginative action choreography, Mr Lucas has failed to produce a notable script or a cast capable of covering up it's atrocious dialogue.
The love scenes were tedious and drawn out, eating into time preciously required to introduce characters relevant to the plots of Episodes 4-6. The action sequences, though impressive, were far too short to compensate for Anakin and Amidala's smooching.
The conveyor belt sequence was a bewildering cliche and can only have been there on the request of the company producing the game of the film.
George Lucas has finally convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt that he does not have a love affair with his Star Wars series, so much as a suffocating marriage to the commercial engine that is filling his pockets.
The greatest shame is that this will probably make money to fund the third, seventh, eighth & ninth instalments. Who's going to break the spell and tell Mr Lucas he "must do better"?
A great, great shame.