An unconvincing and at times painful love story drags down an otherwise decent movie

Rating: 7/10 (2 March 2015)

Well, Obi-wan Jedi mindtricks a drug dealer into reforming, we find out Bobba Fett's father is the prototype for the Imperial Clones, Jar Jar Binks destroys democracy and Anakin and Padme get it on in this good, but somewhat ham fisted, second Star Wars film.
Not a lot happens at all in this, but what does happen can be broken up into two categories: Stuff that works pretty well and Anakin and Padme's romance. I really like Hayden Christenson. I think he's a decent actor, rather unfairly blamed in this film for giving the performance his director asked for. And Anakin is painful in this one. from his misplaced arrogance towards Obi-wan to his cringe worthy attempts to get Padme into bed, and Natalie Portman isn't much better. Padme has been established as a strong character, and in this one we need to start believing that she is Leia's mother, but for 75% of this she is flirting with Anakin and then shutting it down, flirting with Anakin and shutting it down. Repeat cycle. It's left to Ewan McGregor, as Obi wan to carry the story, and he does an awesome job. If there's one actor who looks completely at home in the prequel trilogy, it's McGregor. Obi-wan is the one left to discover the clone planet and then track Jango Fett.
It's in the last act, with their love established, that Anakin and Padme come to the party and start being interesting. We can finally see some of Leia in Padme as she takes over the situation and runs headlong into battle. Anakin in the meantime has continued his journey towards the dark side by slaughtering a tribe of sand people. And we can see a bit of Luke in Anakin as well. And not just the annoying whining. He's basically being faced with the same choices as Luke in the original trilogy and either making the opposite decisions to Luke (getting involved in a romance, slaughtering a tribe out of vengeance) or making the same bad decisions (running off here with Padme is as bad as Luke running off to Cloud City in Empire), so Lucas isn't doing it well, but he is establishing some sort of parallel path between the parents and their children.
Anyway Windu and Yoda get to kick some ass, and Christopher Lee gets to run around as Palpatine's apprentice and act like an Evil Sith, which looks like a lot of fun for him, while Palpatine manipulates Jar Jar into giving him executive powers (Senator Amidala showed very questionable judgment by making Jar Jar her replacement, and here he is, destroying democracy). This is kind of clever as it turns the much maligned Binks into a tragic character, but it isn't that clever.
We end with Anakin and Padme having a forbidden marriage and the clones flying off into the stars in early versions of star destroyers. The Republic is taking shape and the Jedis, while knowing there is a fight coming, are oblivious to Palpatine's duplicity.
You can see what Lucas was trying to do here, and he's made a good movie, albeit with a painful love story and some disgraceful dialogue. Attack of the clones is not a bad film, just one that could have been far better. At least Lucas now had all the characters where he wanted them for Part 3, which was a film so good, it completely justified the prequel trilogy.