Good and bad

Rating: 7/10 (29 May 2007)

After the let down on Star Wars I, people once again set the bar of having this movie as great extremely high and once again, let down. But what can you expect? It's very hard recapturing the magic of something you worked on 20+ years ago. But there was something about this film that seemed to skim some new magic, which the first one didn't.
While all the Star Wars films have been relatively light, this film heads into some darker places. Shmi and Anakin, Anakin's scene with the Tusken raiders and about what he did to them all reach into our minds and soul, grab us there, and hold us, staring us straight in the face with a cold look, foreshadowing the inevitable fate of Anakin Skywalker, want-to-be Jedi.
Hayden Christenen takes on the role of Anakin this time, and we are placed ten years ahead of the first one. The movie does start out better and the story actually has relevance to the series as a whole (which most of the first one did not, except for Palpatine taking over as Chancellor). Hayden is OK with Anakin; not terrible as most people make him out to be, but not so spectacular that you totally believed he would be Darth Vader only three years later.
The script is handled much better this time, but does have its share of faults. The good things include a tight script with a great format and it has much more importance to the future events that will shape the fate of the galaxy. It's not as light and happy as Star Wars I but never crosses into serious adultness. Music once again improves the overall quality of the film and so do the special effects (there were too many special effects, but if they're good, who cares?) Some negative notes though make mistakes the first one didn't. The first one had a good story but they told it all wrong, and that greatly subtracted from the first film. The second one told the story very well, but it got boring at times. The whole "mystery" surrounding the "Sith Lord controlling the Senate" was way too much and took much time. Anakin's story was handled well (excpet for the corny and uncomfrotable love scenes), and Christopher Lee and Ewan McGregor were fantastic.
This one made up all the mistakes in the first one, but made other mistakes in its place. The end though, made up for it (the battle of Geonosis, Count Dooku vs. Yoda). Overall, I would say that it was just as balanced as the first one (not very well-balanced, but oh well), but it was just a better film. 7.0/10