A sure-fire winner...but dross nevertheless

Rating: 3/10 (11 August 2002)

I find it really depressing to know that people will flock to see this film. All of my friends had warned me about it, but I had to go anyway - it's Star Wars, for Pete's sake! Of course I came out fuming that like everyone else I had allowed myself to be bamboozled into going to see a film that, were it not part of the greatest epic of modern times, would flop at the cinema like other trash of this kind.
(SPOILERS COMING) OK, the arena scene was fantastic. And like eveyone else I found the Yoda fight sequence hilarious (I *think* it was supposed to be). But the dialogue was possibly the worst I had ever heard (culminating in the head-spinningly awful "I don't like sand" speech by Hayden Christiansen) and the performances showed that putting together a (mostly) talented cast and giving them dire material and little to no plot worthy of the name will never produce something we like to call "acting". Bravo to all concerned for managing to make even the normally brilliant Natalie Portman look as wooden and uninspiring as can be.
I know Star Wars is not about brilliant acting, astounding intelligence or deep meaning. But that's no excuse for making such a painful excuse of a film. If you're going to make an action flick, at least make it exciting and dynamic, and if your dialogue is to be this awful, HAVE LESS OF IT!