Attack of the Clones opens with a bang and doesn't slow down.

Rating: 9/10 (20 June 2002)

Filled from start to end with state-of-the-art special effects and almost too many exciting action sequences, I daresay the second Star Wars prequel has more pomp and spectacle than what we saw three years ago in The Phantom Menace. But as impressive as the legions of digitally-created clonetroopers are or watching Yoda wield a lightsaber for the first time, what separates Attack of the Clones from The Empire Strikes Back, the second film of the original Star Wars trilogy, is its failure to be more than the sum of its parts. You can wet your finger and taste butter, sugar and icing, but enjoying them as ingredients in a cake is something else entirely different. As silly as this might sound, it doesn't feel like Attack of the Clones was ever put into the oven and allowed to bake.
Attack of the Clones is a better movie than The Phantom Menace, but deep and fundamental flaws lay within the heart and soul of the film. Principle among these is the film's most important element, the love story between Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) and Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman), the Senator from Naboo. Audiences already know what the future holds for these future parents of Luke and Leia, but instead of showcasing the acting abilities of these two gifted young actors, what we get from director George Lucas is the cinematic equivalent of flat soda pop. Say what you will of the love story in James Cameron's Titanic, but at least those two doomed lovers conveyed more emotion than what Christensen and Portman share on-screen. I honestly can't fault the actors because I've seen them deliver better performances in other works, and I lay the blame squarely on Lucas' heavy-handed style of directing and some very poor dialogue between the lovers. Worst of all is Portman, a wonderfully talented actress who plays Padmé almost exactly the same way as in The Phantom Menace -- a stilted, one-dimensional ruler of a picture-perfect world. When she confides her love for Anakin at the start of the film's final act, she delivers her lines as if on autopilot. And that is why Attack of the Clones is a fatally flawed Star Wars adventure; for all its breathtaking CGI and great opening and closing action sequences, the love story between Anakin and Padmé never feels real.
The problem is further compounded in the scenes establishing Anakin as a headstrong young Jedi padawan often in conflict with his Master, Obi-Wan. Christensen's performance fluctuates between upset-bordering-on-whining or calm and apologetic apprentice. He isn't given enough room to show the progress of these emotions on-screen, and that unfortunately reduces the emotional impact felt during another of Clones key scenes taking place on Tatooine. Again, I have to place blame for this mistake with Lucas who should have been relying on more of Anakin's internal torment with a single word or a quick glance. Although I'm not sure Christensen would have been up to the task.
What does work is a sense that Clones is a return to the former action and intrigue of the classic Star Wars films. Lucas and co-writer Jonathan Hales decided to unfold the action in Clones against a galactic mystery, with Anakin and Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) heading off in separate directions to unmask the perpetrator behind assassination attempts on Padmé. From the film's dazzling, but completely ridiculous, chase sequence on Coruscant to the awesome face-off between Obi-Wan and Jango Fett on rain-drenched Kamino to the finale's quartet of fight sequences -- each building in intensity from the previous one -- Attack of the Clones is packed with action that fans and general audiences will enjoy.
It seems Lucas has listened to the valid criticism leveled against The Phantom Menace. While not entirely forgetting about annoying characters like Jar-Jar and including visual gags that aren't really funny at all, he has greatly reduced the number of these distractions in Clones. Poor C-3PO is turned into the comedic relief during the last third of the picture, but it isn't fed to the audience as much as Jar-Jar's goofyness in Episode I.
McGregor's version of Obi-Wan continues to be spot-on, and he easily fills the role of a senior Jedi Knight with the right amount of mysticism, humor and ass-kicking. Indeed, the film's most enjoyable comedic moments come from McGregor, and it's a shame more of these kinds of touches didn't round out the rest of Clones.
One of my biggest worries turned out to be for not. When I heard Lucas was going to reveal the mystery behind Boba Fett by allowing us a glimpse of the bounty hunter's childhood, visions of Jake Lloyd yelling "Yippee!" danced through my head. Instead, the relationship between Jango and his son Boba was presented in a pretty cool way, a kind of intergalactic father and son bully team that was great fun to watch.
And as I said earlier, the special effects magic in Attack of the Clones are even better than Menace, released only three short years ago. The digital version of Yoda looks pretty damn amazing, right down to ILM's incorporating the "ear bounce" of the puppet Yoda from the classic Star Wars films. In fact, I liked the production design for Clones a lot more than Menace's, which always seemed a little too cartoony for my taste. From the hospital-like interiors of the Kamino aliens city to the trio of ferocious creatures in the gladiator arena, the aliens, creatures and environments are outstanding. And speaking as a lifelong fan, seeing the little things like Coruscant's version of advertising, or looking at Owen Lars sitting in the exact same kitchen from A New Hope made me feel like this was really the Star Wars universe.
Still, some of the old problems with Menace remain. The dialogue by Lucas and Hales is hit-or-miss, and it could have used another rewrite from a wordsmith who's an expert at writing natural sounding dialogue. No one will argue that Lucas hires the world's best people to create his imaginary environments...but why then doesn't he hire someone like Frank Darabont, Scott Frank, John August, M. Night Shyamalan or another accomplished screenwriter to polish up his scripts? George, you don't have to do everything!
Attack of the Clones has been skewered by the mainstream critics, and I think that's unfortunate. It's not a bad movie but neither is it a good movie; the more I think about it, the more I believe greatness slipped by Clones by just a hair length. Lucas, while certainly an innovator and a man of incredible cinematic ingenuity, needs to also realize his limitations as a filmmaker. I believe the savaging he took from the most vocal critics of The Phantom Menace helped make Attack of the Clones a better Star Wars film, but his journey towards being a better director isn't over yet. Here's hoping that Episode III will finally see Lucas come into full bloom as a master storyteller.