Another rather negative comment.

Rating: 7/10 (27 May 2002)

** THIS COMMENT CONTAINS SPOILERS **

When I went to see Episode II, I had rather high expectations. This because I had been told it was considerably better than Episode I, with much less Jar Jar presence etc.
During the first 1 - 1.5 hours of the movie, I thought it was rather slow most of the time. Especially so during the scenes with Amidala and Anakin. At times it was actually slow to the point of being outright boring.
When I left the cinema after the movie, someone asked me what I thought of it. It then struck me that the thing I liked the most about the entire movie, was the sound effect used for the seismic charges among the asteroids.
Naturally, there are other good things about the movie, but that was the one thing in the entire movie that felt "perfect", or close to it.
One part of the movie I liked was the water world with the tall aliens. These felt "right" (quite possibly because they look like aliens are "supposed" to look like according to other movies etc). They didn't feel so over-the-top like some other creations in the movie do (the thing Obi-Wan talked to at the diner for example).
One other thing. During some scenes, I almost started looking for the gamepad controller infront of my seat. The whole look and feel of the scenes presented, was very close to those of a platform game. I'm refering to the scenes with Amidala and Anakin in some processing facility.
And Jar Jar ... well, he wasn't in the movie that much. But everytime he's on screen, and especially when he's talking, I feel that I'm about 20 years too old to be in the target audience for the movie.
I think Jar Jar is something that only young children can really appreciate, and I'll go out on a limb and say that pretty much every other viewer of Episode I thought that his presence made the movie worse than it would have been without him.
So ... why am I not so thrilled about this movie? Well, I think the plain truth is that I've become too old for Star Wars. I was 10 years old when I first saw Return of the Jedi on cinema. I was blown away by the movie, and found the Ewoks fascinating instead of annoying. Now, 20 years - and thousands of movies - later, I'm expecting much more from a movie. Now, I can detect sub-par dialogue and acting.
Episode I and II, to me, feels like movies that are made almost exclusively for children (unlike, for example, LoTR). They have lots of fancy effects to make them go "WOOOW!!", but other aspects of the movies has been given secondary priorities to a degree that makes it harder for me to enjoy them as an adult.

*** (3) out of of ***** (5)