I'll send you my $10 bucks now if you promise not to make another one. Deal?

Rating: Null/10 (31 October 2002)

Lucas stopped caring, it seems, after EMPIRE STRIKES BACK made less than STAR WARS did, and so he decided to just go for the merchandising gold with ROTJ. But that one was CITIZEN FREAKIN' KANE (no, make that LE GRAND ILLUSION) compared to the most recent 2 theme-park rides/movie extravaganzas to which we've been subjected.
Look, I had very low expectations for this one after the last one was a total pile of feces. All that this one had to do was NOT be a total pile of feces and I'd have been satisfied. THAT is how low Lucas is now setting the bar. And you know what? It didn't even meet THAT ridiculously low standard.
Well, there's no annoying little kid in this one, and not too much of Jar-Jar Binks, so you'd think that would automatically make it better... but not if you replace them with DAWSON'S CREEK on TATOOINE.

Natalie Portman has certainly blossomed into a hottie, but even SHE doesn't believe she's an ex-queen/senator who can fight like a Jedi. For sheer woodenness, her line readings put Adam West to shame. She could play the lead in a distaff version of PINOCCHIO.
And the male-model wannabe playing Annakin? I bet he could give John Stamos a run for his money as "least talented pretty boy making money as an actor". He better do some underwear ads, and quick! And what is with the hair?

Yes, we gain some insight into the forces that mold the heroic young Jedi Annikan Skywalker into the most powerful agent of the Dark Side, but I just don't care anymore. And frankly, the whole "mother" angle is a bit pat. ["SPOILER WARNING"]: What, he's just now thought of looking her up after 10 years, after abandoning her to continuing slavery? Nice kid. And she manages to die JUST when he shows up? And then he avenges her death by slaughtering her torturers (including their families), but it's OFF-SCREEN? Well, you have to keep that PG-13, right George?
I think Annakin got mean for the same reason Johnny Cash's "Boy Named Sue" did. Everybody called him "Annie", and it made him testy.

So, after hours of plodding plotting and clumsy exposition, we finally get some action sequences. And they are utterly un-dramatic, chaotic and loud, and ultimately numbing. Yes, we find out about the origin of storm-troopers, and we see Yoda do some comical butt-kickin', and we find out about Boba Fett, and get to see the Jedis in full battle, and all that sort of neat SW insider stuff. But the mythology, as lovely a thing as it is, has long since been put on the backburner to make room for more merchandising opportunities and thrill ride sequences with CGI effects.
I was going to do a checklist of plot-point inanities and inconsistencies, but there is so much stupidity and so little time. But even the plot's STRUCTURE is suspect. It attempts to mirror that of EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (the best film of the series) by cross-cutting between 2 parallel stories. All this does, however, is underline CLONES' inferiority to the earlier film. In EMPIRE, the 2 parallel stories were COMPELLING, and here they are deadly dull. I will say this: unlike the last movie, at least the action sequences in the new one have something to do with the characters and the plot, such as it is. And Natalie has indeed become a HOTTIE of intergalactic dimension (I thought this needed saying TWICE).
All in all, it will take a very sharp light saber pointed at my cajones to get me into a theater to see the 3rd one (or the sixth one, or whatever). Although I probably will end up seeing it on cable... just out of curiosity. Oh, who am I kidding. I'll end up seeing it in a theater, with the biggest screen and best sound I can find. But I won't go Opening Day! That is, I PROBABLY won't go opening day... um... maybe opening weekend, but not opening day. Yes, definitely not opening day. Unless I get free passes or something. Or a bunch of my friends want to go. Or... ok, George, Ok. I'll just send you my $10 bucks now if you promise not to make another one.

Deal?