Episode II Delivers

Rating: 8/10 (16 May 2002)

Forget all the reviews that say Star Wars II completely sucks. Sure, the love story is about the most ineptly written and performed love story in screen history, and Natalie Portman's acting was shockingly weak (or perhaps she was simply mis-casted from the start -- probably a combination of both), but all the great stuff in this film more than makes up for these problems. This movie is far better than Phantom Menace -- interesting things actually happen; and except for the love story sequences, most of it didn't make me cringe.
Although the first 100 minutes of this movie did manage to keep my interest, nothing really special happens -- a few good action scenes do take place (and one bad one -- there's one scene that reminded me of something out of Super-Mario Brothers). But the last 40 minutes or so were really great, and worth the long set-up. Unlike Phantom Menace, I thought the story line to this movie was good -- it's just that the actual dialogue could have used some more work. Why Lucas is now afraid to hire real screenwriters is a mystery -- he had accomplished screenwriters help him out in "The Empire Strikes Back."
Hayden Christensen did a good job with Anakin -- he had some very weak lines to deliver in parts, but those instances were balanced out with some very well acted pre-Vader-type scenes. McGregor also did a good job. It was fun to watch Yoda in action. The film does rely on CGI way more than I would like, but I felt they did a much better job with it this time around.
One other minor criticism -- we learn at the start of the film that Amadala is no longer the Queen of Naboo, and the reason is that Naboo elects its queens and her two terms were up. I thought that was kind of silly. I have no problem with the queen being an elected official, but who in their right minds would elect a 16-year old girl to be the queen of an entire planet? 16-year old monarchs have sprung up from time to time, but only because they were heirs to thrones and the people had no choice in the matter. I could be missing something here (perhaps it is a religious thing on Naboo that only young girls can rise to the level of the top executive), but the whole idea of electing a teenager with very little life experience as your supreme leader seems kind of stupid.
Maybe she ran unopposed?