Best of the prequels

Rating: 7/10 (23 March 2014)

The prequel trilogy is no match for the original, if for no other reason that it rehashes similar ground 20 years later. But it's not bad space opera, and of the three prequels, I thought this one is the best.
It suffers the usual problems of a middle segment without a real beginning, middle, or end, but the story really makes some progress here, taking us from an assassination attempt of Anakin Skywalkers's love Padme to a long-brewing plot to create an army of the Republic, soon to be an army of the Empire. The Jedi plausibly fall for the manipulations that lead to the need for such an army to counteract the Sith puppet, the Trade Federation. Film 2 also sets up all the key characters from an ambiguously good Anakin to the Emperor, and introduces great new ones, like Count Dookoo.
You can't go wrong casting Christopher Lee as an evil mastermind. He and Peter Cushing, who played the evil mastermind in the original, are grand relics of the glory days of Hammer films, famous for the 60s Dracula and Frankenstein productions. It would have been great to have both of these good friends in the same film (and of sorts, they are in Episode 3). Alas, it was not to be due to Cushing's untimely death many years ago, but it's nice to see them strut their stuff in different parts of Star Wars.
On the other hand, you can go wrong with Hayden Christensen's Anakin. The attack on Anakin's mother provides some background for his fall, but not enough. HC is just not up to the task: he can look brooding, but more like an awkward teenager. The same awkwardness permeates his attachment to the much older and more self-secure Padme. This role, in all three prequels, really needed a more weighty (literally!) actor, a big intelligent farmhand who resented his slavery and had a chip on his shoulder from his earliest days. The actors in the prequels try their best, but they just can't pull it off. They needed someone of David Prowse size with a voice that could mature into a James Earl Jones voice, not just someone with dark rings around his eyes.
The movie has a lot going for it, though, besides Christopher Lee. Interesting chases of assassins and bounty hunters employing them, a Ewan McGregor who is getting more into his Obi Wan routine, a dark background story for the imperial storm troopers, the factory from hell, and a silly but awesome Roman Colosseum scene that segues into a serious battle, where the Jedi in the waning days of their wisdom employ their very undoing to win a temporary victory, as Yoda immediately recognizes. The John Williams music, now derivative of himself being derivative of Dvorak is still great. Some good use is still made of the humor of R2 and 3PO, but not enough. In general, the original trilogy had more fun being a humorous and adventurous space opera, whereas the prequels are lacking in the humor department (unless you think Jar Jar Binks is funny).
As always, Lucas overdoes it on the special effects, and doesn't know when to cut what does not work (like Anakin flying fruit onto Padme's fork). One of the things that made John Carpenters The Thing so great was his good taste in when to cut out unsatisfactory special effects, as anyone who has seen the "deleted scenes" from said film knows.
Still, the film moves along nicely from beginning to end: not as relentlessly as most post- 2000 action flicks, which were scripted for an audience suffering ADD, and not as slow as a 'serious' sf drama like Solaris. If parts VII and onward are about as good as this, the audience should not complain too much. And the Abrams style is much more suited to space opera than to Star Trek in any case.