Really good, what we desperately wanted from Episode I

Rating: Null/10 (19 May 2002)

The word on the street was that Episode II was a vast improvement on The Phantom Menace, and they were right. The only real complaint I heard was that the developing romance between Anakin & Padme slowed things down. Now that I've seen it, I can say it is visually stunning, fast paced and in the end thoroughly entertaining.
Ever since the likes of Jurassic Park there has been the promise of some really eye popping, mind blowing movies thanks to the use of cgi. I think SWII is the first one to really deliver. I would go as far as to say that special effects have been overdone, there is so much to look at.. and at times (especially in battle scenes) I felt like my eyes were going to pop out of my head because they couldn't handle it :)
Now that I've started a critique, a few people I have talked to say the romantic scenes are a bit much. To me the problem seemed to be that George Lucas laboured over the whole thing... it's as if he knew the romance had to be played out, but was scared about getting it wrong. Movie romances normally flow a lot more naturally than this one.
Otherwise excellent piece of work, particularly in the latter stages of the movie where as you probably know by now, Yoda shows he can mix it with the best.. It all looks and feels like Star Wars, and there's more battles, chases and light sabre duels that we all were begging for the first time around.
It's fantastic stuff, but the hype can spoil it for you... it's just a movie, but an absolute visual and auditory feast at that.