George........less can be more sometimes

Rating: 6/10 (16 May 2002)

Where to start with Attack of the Clones. After the heartbreaking disappointment of The Phantom Menace ("yippee","mesa Jar-Jar") - and having watched it several times, it is still a disappointment - my expectations were lower for this one. But over the last few days before it's release, I started to get excited again.
SPOILER ALERT - DO NOT READ UNTIL SEEN MOVIE
Sitting in the theatre, the music starts and Star Wars appears..the stomach butterflies start fluttering. As the movie gets going, I jump from feeling excited and remember the thrill of seeing A New Hope when I was 6 to cringing at the extra-clunky dialogue and laughing at the hopeless emoting of Hayden Christensen, especially with Natalie Portman's Senator. And the less said about the death of Anakin's mother, the better.........let's just say that everyone in the audience was laughing out loud. What happened to the George Lucas of American Graffitti and the original trilogy? I think that he has spent too much time playing with his CGI-toolbox - almost everything has a false sheen to it........we even see Anakin and Padme eat CGI fruit!!! Every scene has to have some creature lurking at some corner of the frame.
But there are good things..............for one, it is better than the Phantom Menace. Much better. There is less Jar-Jar - only this time C3P0 takes his place as the annoying character. The action is exciting, sweeping and, at times, breathtaking. Ewan, Sam and Christopher Lee take the acting kudos; Ewan especially is growing into Alec Guinness in A New Hope. By far the best section of the movie is the latter part when George gets the multiple action scenes going, and who would have expected Yoda to prove what you only hear about as concerns his Jedi powers - this got everyone cheering and clapping. Lucas is also readying, a la Empire Strikes Back, the movie audience for a stunning 3rd instalment.
So, to sum up, Lucas is getting there but the soul of the series is in danger of being overwhelmed by the reliance on CGI. Oh, to be 6 years old again.