A decent successor to Episode I... nothing more...

Rating: 6/10 (3 June 2002)

I don't see why so many people consider this to be a work of a genius. Lucas has excellent funding with which he can hire the best special effects people in the industry. You EXPECT excellent special effects. I think that most of the scenes looked like they were video-game cutscenes (reminiscent of Final Fantasy). They looked original, colorful, but far from photo-realistic. (And sorry guys, a bunch of people in an arena with glowing rods fighting off hundreds of computer-generated creatures just doesn't do it for me.) The creatures looked like bad guys from role-playing games... I wish they would spend more time trying to come up with foes that actually LOOK fierce.
The sound is excellent, the acting is okay. Evan McGregor and Christopher Lee are great; Natalie Portman, one of the best actresses of her generation, is okay. She is there to look good, and she does a fine job at that. Christensen is, well, pretty bad. Some of the characters are great, which is one of the reasons why I like watching any film that Lucas is involved with (like Indiana Jones)! Obi-Wan and the Count are excellent. Palpatine has an excellent bad-guy voice. I fail to see why Samuel L. Jackson was so hyped up. He was supposed to have excellent fighting scenes, but all we really saw were basic enemy fire deflections and a few slashes. I was disappointed when he beheaded the ambitious Jango Fett, who was one of the highlights of this film!
Overall, I think the movie was quite lame; most of the scenes were borrowed from other films (Examples: the chase scene from The 5th Element, the Gladiator scene), and the unoriginal scene transitions made the movie feel like a PowerPoint slideshow. Lucas needs to hire some good editors.
The best thing about Star Wars is the story. Lucas did an excellent job with the storyline for his saga... too bad the screenplays are weak. Some of the dialogue was irritating, some of it was adequate... the rest was simply bad. C-3PO replaced Jar Jar... he is officially Mr. Annoying in this movie. I was constantly hoping that he would get destroyed during the last fight scene; he was getting on my nerves.
Finally, the movie lacked darkness. All the pretty colors, happiness, and pretty fight scenes fail to provide a dark atmosphere for the film. Then again, it has been blessed with a lame PG rating (I guess this was Lucas's goal). I recommend this movie for everyone. It is nothing incredible, but definitely worth 150 minutes of your time just to see what the special effects gurus are able to achieve today. I love intelligent, well-written, dark, and unpredictable movies. This was film doesn't fit into any of those categories. I am going to watch the third installment with low expectations as well... but who knows? Lucas has the power to turn the last one into an amazing film; I just hope that he doesn't mess it up like episodes I and II.
Rating: 6/10