I was mystified, but maybe I was the only one!

Rating: Null/10 (26 June 2002)

First of all, to understand how excited I was, you have to understand this: I was raised on Star Wars. Star Wars is the first movie that I can remember seeing. I'm afraid that I am unable to give an unbiased review, so I'm just going to gush about what I loved. Which was just about everything. :D The following contains spoilers, you have been warned...
I like Ewan McGregor and Samuel L. Jackson. This movie hasn't lessened my impossibly high regard for them. I was mega-pleased to see Christopher Lee (I sat in my seat for ten minutes thinking, "Who is he, I know I've seen him somwhere else."), and I think I'm absolutely in love with Hayden Christiansen. (Remember, I am sixteen.) Natalie Portman doesn't impress me as far as Star Wars movies go, she was better in "Where The Heart Is".
I thought the best part was how things began to fall together. We see the beginning of the Clone Wars, the beginning of the romance between Anakin and Padme, and how Luke is related to Owen and Beru, which I personally think is the neatest part. And Watto is as greasy as ever, I see. When Anakin left to find his mother, and he left on the speeder...combined with the music, I was getting goose bumps, and that was NOT the premature theatre air conditioning! And I cried twice (I thought I was going to cry more, with the doomed romance thing. I was a wreck at the end of Moulin Rouge and Shakespeare in Love); once when Anakin's mother died and once right before they went into that arena and they kissed. I'm a sucker for romance.
I was impressed with the Obi-Wan/Anakin dynamic. We can certainly see that Anakin is impatient, and has a lot of frustration built up in him. This comes through at times (i.e. on Tatoine [er, sp?] after his mother dies), but sometimes his impetousness and quick temper serves them well. And everything starts to come together. The clones. Stormtroopers. Stormtroopers. Clones. Anakin is also well on his way to the Dark Side. Sniffle.
Oh, but the movie was not without humor! Obi-Wan's, "Why do I have the feeling you'll be the death of me?" was the first thing I laughed at. We must have been in a theatre full of people who haven't seen Star Wars before, because my mother, my sister, and I were the only ones laughing. Some lines were all in the delivery. "We came to rescue you." Obi-Wan looks up at his chains. "Good job!" That couldn't've been better IMNSHO. And C-3PO's puns consisting of "This is such a drag!" and "I'm beside myself!" were a scream (well, to us three), and Anakin's "I've got a bad feeling about this," was absolutely a classic. And in the factory, when Anakin's light sabre was cut off, and he said, "Oh no, not again... Obi-Wan's going to kill me!" was great.
Speaking of humor (or, in this case, lack thereof), Jar-Jar only had a small part in this movie, thank the Lord. I swear, he's going to be the death of them all, whether he kills them with his annoying babbling or by moving to give the Chancellor (Palpantine, *cough*) full power. Darnit.
The Geonosis battle scene was absolutely amazing. I was rather pleased to see female Jedi among the troops. :) That was fun. I was impressed with the battle scenes, period. Geonosis, Jango and Obi-Wan, and Anakin and machines, etc. But there was something about Yoda riding in on that ship with the clones that made me think "Large and in charge!" Before that, when it was just the three fighting the... er, things that were supposed to kill them was interesting. And I also felt sort of bad for Boba after Jango Fett got his head lopped off by Mace Windu.
The shock value in the battle in the hangar between Anakin (he was SMOKING after Dooku did that electric thing to him [after which I commented "He's got to do a lot of that this year, hasn't he?"]), Obi-Wan, and Dooku was amazing. My jaw was hanging the entire time. I gasped a bit when Obi-Wan was wounded out of fighting, cheered when Anakin started fighting with two light sabres (absolutely loved that part, and the lighting was WONDERFUL), and gasped rather loudly when he got his arm sliced off. But Yoda made the entire thing worth it. You are always hearing about how Yoda was a great warrior and swordsman, now seeing that come to life was just great.
Another interesting thing (I'm just full of them, eh?) was the generation of the Jedis. You were finally able to put the Master and Apprentice Jedi in a long line with Yoda down to Anakin (and even Luke, in a way).
My cardinal rule is to never read a movie review before I go into a theater and see a movie. I'm not a movie critic, I don't go to nitpick and point out flaws and say that the CGI sucked or the acting was bad (although I will say that script writing is not George Lucas's strong point), I go for the story, and always with an open mind. I did that for this one, and I wasn't disappointed.