A 21st Century 80s buddy movie that prequels a 70s sci-fi franchise - Not Good.

Rating: 6/10 (20 March 2007)

I'll admit it. I was impressed with Episode I of the Star Wars prequels even if it was my first foray into the whole thing. With Episode II, I have been put off seeing the remaining four films as it was, in truth, a complete waste of my time: The acting was bad, the plot tiresome, the delivery of the script awful, the themes unspectacular and the CGI being used as a bit of a cop out once everything bad had been established; even the annoying clicking noises the aliens used to communicate with were a disaster.
Everything in the opening thirty minutes of this film is utterly forgettable. The two leads swan around some sort of space age city that amerces the screen in so much CGI, it's ridiculous. There's one point where a character sits in a café of some kind talking to an alien creature and despite there being a whole world of activity going on out of the window right next to him, he decides to keep his focus dead ahead of him; at the creature. There's not even a glance, just dead ahead. I mean, come on - what the alien had to say wasn't THAT interesting. This is an example of the CGI merely swallowing up the film. The other instance of frustration occurs during a car chase of some sort. The two characters strut around like they're in an 80s buddy/cop movie; exchanging bad dialogue and defeating the impossible to achieve their goals.
'The force' was once a cinematic convention to savour and remember  now it's just a cheap plot device to win the audience over with. If these enemies are so smart, they should know not to mess about with Jedis in the first place, but alas, from certain failure comes undisputed success. An example can be when Anakin jumps from the 'car' through several lanes of flying traffic only to land perfectly on the target's car. Upon breaking his lightsaber, he has the cheek to comment in a disgustingly cheesy manner 'Oh no, Obi-Wan's going to kill me(!)' You really have to laugh; but laugh at it, not with it.
When it comes to the characters/acting department, I'm thinking this is extremely important for a Star Wars film: lots of different types of alien/creatures/human beings that need certain unique traits to zone you into their world. Alas, again  not here. Portman delivers another shocking rendition of Queen Padme, Hayden Christensen reads his lines like they're off an autocue and given the terrible, cheesy, one-liner filled script; it was never going to work from the start. Still, at least there's less Jar-Jar this time.
Topped off with poor excuses that lead into action scenes, such as the attempted executions that you just know everyone's going to escape unscathed from (The badguys should have learned by now, remember?) and then massive battle scenes that fly past in a blur that an X-wing fighter plane would be proud of, all the time relying on CGI and characters shouting their lines as you watch on without a care in the world. Star Wars: Episode II had all the makings of dangerously damaging the legacy that, apparently, Lucas managed to save with Episode III.