Better than Phantom Menace, but........

Rating: 7/10 (18 May 2002)

To start things off, I'd have to say that George Lucas is a genius. He brought the first Star Wars film (now known as Episode IV- A New Hope) into our lives in 1977, The Empire Strikes Back in 1980 and Return of the Jedi in 1983 and they still remain to be the most magical, imaginative, creative, innovative & influential films of all time. Simply put, they were classics.
Then in 1999, George had an idea - to bring the prequels to the big screen. Hence, Episode I - The Phantom Menace was released, leaving everyone who saw it confused, wondering where Lucas' magic went. To soothe the scars of abuse heaped on audiences by the impotent direction and blatant racial stereotyping of Episode I - The Phantom Menace, the only criteria this installment really had to meet was: be better than its predecessor. Not a difficult task, and Attack of the Clones is an improvement over the tragedy witnessed three years ago. Alas, "better than Phantom Menace" still doesn't mean Clones is a particularly good movie. The film's central focus - the "romance" between Senator Padme and Anakin Skywalker is tediously dull. How people as boring as they are made kids as interesting as Luke and Leia is beyond me. No chemistry whatsoever, Lucas probably thought, " That's ok, the Lightsaber duels scenes are gonna save this movie". This film offers some of the strongest casting of many recent films, yet the casts are never utilized, never given material, dimension, or direction which allows them to shine. Bombarded with 90's cliche lines like, "I hate it when he does that", is truly unacceptable, especially for a Star Wars film. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger delivers punchlines more clever than that.
This film just suffocates itself so much trying to be legendary like the first trilogy but hip enough to fit the new millennium.
I guess all I have left to say is the Force may have been with George Lucas directing Episodes IV-VI, but since viewing the first two prequels, he may have turned to the Dark Side.