As good as Episodes 4, 5, and 6

Rating: 8/10 (16 May 2002)

First, let me start by saying yes, much, much better than Episode I it was. Where Menace was overindulgent in its special effects, cheesy characters (Jar Jar, anyone?), and chunky dialogue, Clones was much more character-driven. In addition, the largely reduced roles of the Digitally Animated characters led to a movie that felt much more like Episodes 4-6.
I won't bother explaining the plot  you'll either already know it or won't want to, but rest assured, it's a doozy. By far the most memorable battle in all of Star Wars occurs at the end of the episode, and the Midnight showing I went to had fans wildly cheering throughout the battle. If you're a fan of Star Wars, this battle is everything you've wanted to see. Yoda also gets by far his largest role in any of the films, and he even kicks a little butt.
Haydn Christianson was quite believable as Anakin, and he definitely portrayed the internal anger well. Natalie Portman was surprisingly flat as Amidala  she's usually the best actor in any movie she's in, but I thought both Christianson and Ewan McGregor, reprising his role as the young Obi-Wan Kenobi, were better. Jar Jar Binks was actually likeable  yes, likeable  in his role as an assistant to the now-Senator Amidala.
The plot explains a lot of the origins of what you see in Episodes 4-6  the death star, the storm troopers, the rise of the Emperor  but it was also slightly confusing. Just which side is the good side, anyway? If I have any complaint with the movie, it's that exactly what makes it so exhilarating is also what makes it so flat. The huge digitalized battles were awesome to watch, but they were much less personal than the smaller battles of 4, 5, and 6. You never saw armies of thousands fighting at once which makes it hard to understand why the battles would be so much smaller later on.
Nevertheless, this movie is definitely up there with the best of the Star Wars series, and will go down as a much, much more satisfying encounter than Episode I.