The worst of the bunch; only good for marathons

Rating: 2/10 (22 April 2007)

How is this movie ruined? Let me count the ways. One: Hayden Christensen. "Adolescent Ani" Skywalker is just horrible, with no aspect of his performance that is always tolerable. Two: Natalie Portman. When she loses her proper Amidala accent, she just becomes another hack who seems like she's striving to overdo everything. Three: the writing is *terrible*. Example: Anakin's whiny speech of "They're like animals! I hate them! I hate them all!" Four: the film seems to be on waxy digital overload. One often wonders why there is no blue or green on anybody's costume. That leads us to five, the most egregious offense of all. *They made Yoda a CG character!* What in Obi-Wan's name possessed them? Sure, he has that awe-inspiring duel with Christopher Lee's Count Dooku, but he-- like most of the rest of the movie-- looks like he does not really exist.
The point of a movie is to be entertaining. But a movie should also have a slight feel of reality to it. How can there be reality when you could throw an object through any given landmark on the screen at any time? The rest of the prequel trilogy has this shameful mistake as well, but not so appalling as here. And 97% of this movie *is* appalling. If you don't wish to end up gouging out your eyes, do not watch this movie.