The most underrated Star Wars movie

Rating: 7/10 (3 June 2008)

This movie gets a lot of flack and has been called by many (including a certain man whose name rhymes with bebert) the worst movie in the Star Wars saga. I, however, would disagree whole heartedly with that accusation. I would almost put Episode II on par with Episode III for best of the prequels. It's not nearly as good as the classic originals, but it's still got enough plot and character development to keep the audience interested. It definitely did what Episode I failed to do in terms of plot and character development. First off, let me get some of the common complaints about this movie out of the way right away. A lot of people complain about the amount of romance in this movie. Yeah, yeah, I know, George Lucas is not a very good romance director, at all. But the romance that's in this film is here for a reason. George wanted to show the developing relationship between Anakin and Padme in a way that would make the events of the next film even more tragic. So, in a sense this is the most romantic of the Star Wars movies and the romance is actually more necessary here than it was in The Empire Strikes Back. I think the reason why so many fans were offended by this kind of romance is because it was something that hadn't been done in a Star Wars film before. But is that a bad thing? Is it so wrong for George Lucas to expand his universe a bit by trying new things? Not everything has to be the same as the originals. Now, all that being said, the romance aspect wasn't perfect. A few moments are almost cringe-worthy, but it also had some moments that were really affective and I really did feel attached to these two people by the time they get married at the end of the film. The next thing that people complain about is Hayden Christianson's acting. People, it's a Star Wars movie. The last thing I'm looking at is the acting when I watch these movies. Remember how horrible and whiny Mark Hammill was in the original ("But I wanted to go to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters! Waaaaaah!") Yeah, I bet you forgot about that because you paying attention to the story and characters too much to notice. Sure there are better choices to play Anakin and I'm not saying that Hayden is the best choice for Anakin, but he's certainly not the worst. In reality, no one's a good actor in Star Wars. Even good actors aren't good actors in Star Wars. In fact Hayden's a decent actor in most of his other work, it's just that this is Star Wars and the focus is not on the acting. Anyways, with those things out of the way, I will say that Episode II's plot isn't perfect. Sometimes it just gets a bit too, well, boring. But the fact remains that George really stepped up the character development on this one just like he did in Episode V and it really shows through. People and things are starting to shift in a big way here and there's enough mystery to keep audiences interested to want to see a third movie where they basically already know what's going to happen. Going back and making movies about something that already happened is a huge undertaking for anyone and I feel that story-wise this one got it right the most due to major continuity flaws in the third movie and the lack of progression in the first. There's also enough eye candy here to keep the casual film-goer interested, such as a lightsaber battle with Yoda and an epic clone war battle at the end of the movie. When Obi-Wan briefly mentioned the clone wars at the beginning of Episode IV no one imagined it was going to be this cool. Seeing that battle is reason alone to see this movie. Ultimately though, Episode II is a Star Wars movie for Star Wars fans and I think that's why a lot of casual viewers couldn't appreciate it. It's not perfect, but it's far from being bad.