darn it! It's going down

Rating: 9/10 (11 June 2002)

Contains spoilers
I can tell you this with absolute certainty: Attack of the Clones will be out of this site's top 250 list in a few weeks. It falls about five places back each day, it is inevitable. That's too bad, because it deserves better. It deserves better than to eventually carry the same rating as The Phantom Menace, and better than being considered inferior to Return of the Jedi. I thought this was one of the most exciting, well-crafted, and entertaining space/adventure movies I'd ever seen, and I've seen every Star Wars movie. Certainly this movie has the best action scenes in the series, not only the best special effects, but the most awesome, exhilarating and adrenaline-pumping sequences I've ever seen. I've simply never seen anything as elaborate and ambitious as the chase through the Coruscant skies, the awesome chase through the meteors that makes the one in Empire Strikes Back pale, the very amusing and exciting action sequence at the Geonosis droid factory with 3PO, Anakin and Amidala, and of course the epic final arena battle. I also immensely enjoyed Obi-Wan's investigation in the library, to Yoda while he's teaching the Jedi "younglings" (GREAT idea, mr. Lucas), at his sleazy restaurant owner friend Dex and his visit to the eye-popping clone factory on Kamino. Obi-Wan really seems like another person in this film: in Episode 1 he seemed inexperienced, awkward, and insecure; in this film he's confident, cool, mature, and obviously more experienced. I also liked the development of Amidala: she gets to be more human and spontaneous in this film, she gets to look sexy and kick some ass, and... she gets to giggle and fumble with Anakin's attempts at courting and corny declarations of love. I think the worst scene in the movie is the one at the fireplace: there's times where their romantic tumfoolery scenes work and are touching, but when they get too serious, it absolutely falls apart and it's nowhere more obvious than in that scene. But almost every other scene works, and works really well. There are some really interesting scenes in the movie that connect it with events in the original trilogy, that almost weren't there in Phantom. Take my favorite moment for example, the brief allusion by the arachnid-like Geonosians to the Death Star; or the introduction of the Larses, Luke Skywalker's future foster family; or that great final scene where we see the clones in action, and they look just like the stormtroopers; or another great moment, when Boba Fett sees his dad Jango getting killed by a Jedi and we understand where the character's hatred of Jedi in the originals comes from; the ominous Darth Vader music that comes on whenever Anakin starts getting aggressive. This is really one of those movies where with each viewing you discover new links and connections with the earlier films, and I really believe this is the most plot-centred and complex of all the Star Wars films yet. I really loved this movie, and it's easily one of the three best Star Wars movies ever made. You've probably already seen it, so if you didn't like it I can only feel sorry for you that you're unable to just sit back and enjoy such an amazing ride.