Great Adventure - Huge Step up From TPM

Rating: 10/10 (17 May 2002)

Don't believe the self-important film critics and wannabe indy-film student reviewers, this is a very good film, but more importantly, it's a great time at the movies! The visuals are incredible, the sets and backgrounds are breathtaking, the special effects are what we have come to expect, groundbreaking, and the battle scenes are unreal. Seeing Yoda in action alone is worth seeing the film! The dialogue and acting, while still typically Lucas-style choppy, are better than Phantom Menace, and Hayden Christenson is a force (excuse the pun) to be reckoned with in Hollywood. He delivers a great performance as a coming of age Jedi struggling with the inner demons that will eventually lead him to... well, we all know where he ends up. But despite that foreknowledge, you're still captivated by him and the rollercoaster ride of his emotions. AOTC follows the same pattern that Lucas established with the first trilogy. While A New Hope, and subsequently Phantom Menace were bright, colorful films, which mainly introduce us to the essential characters and give a thin base story from which to launch the rest of the trilogy, Attack of the Clones in turn follows Empire Strikes Back step for step. It is dark and brooding, like Empire, it has 2 separate plots which branch out, and then come back together, like Empire, and ends with a battle scene eerily similar to Empire's climax. And in the same frustrating and wonderful way as Empire, Clones raises far more questions than it answers.
Bottom Line - Citizen Kane it's not, but unlike Citizen Kane, it's the most ENTERTAINING 2 1/2 hours I've spent in the theater in a long time - AND THAT'S THE POINT OF A STAR WARS FILM!!!