The Latest Star Wars: Fun or Flop?

Rating: 3/10 (17 May 2002)

** Very minor spoilers, be warned **

** Very minor spoilers, be warned **
Sadly, I have to say it was rather laughable and not just because of the unnecessary slapstick (at one point C3PO gets his head lopped off and stuck onto the body of a battle droid and a droid head being put on his body leading to myriad bad jokes) and the fact that my 7 year old nephew could have written a better love story. The worst part is that the soundtrack was so off and so screwy or there was no music at all in some of the sequences that it actually detracted from the action on the screen. I've been unimpressed with music in movies before, but never actually had it make my experience less enjoyable.
For instance, Anakin goes to do some of the really bad things we know he is going to do and they have the music swell *prior* to his arrival at the scene and pretty much cuts off when he gets there. Worse, you only get to see about 5 seconds of his badness before they cut that off also. Fear not, you get to hear about what he did later on in a melodramatic dialogue with Amidala.
Lucas was much much better at pulling plot lines together when he was doing the original three films and I hope that he manages to find himself again when they do the last Star Wars film he will do in his lifetime and we "end" the series with a really high note to make up for these two lackluster productions.
Never fear though, there were a few very cool sequences/shots too... too bad they just didnt last long enough to matter. The special effects were more or less as spectacular as you would expect to come out of ILM and some of the action sequences, while in some instances a little *too* quick paced for my tastes leaving you wanting to see a little more of the amazing detailing they did in the settings, overall it was well done.
And don't mind Natalie Portman who at least doesn't have all the annoying hairstyles this time... nor that she seems to have been taking lessons from Calista Flockhart on how to be the thinnest movie actress you can be. (There is one scene that you can really see her ribs sticking out which is a bit distressing)
I guess it boils down to, "I was pretty damned unimpressed and hope in the last episode he will do in his lifetime that he manages to pull it all together and make it work like return of the jedi because there's much action to be had in the Clone Wars people have been waiting 20+ years to see."
But. If you had to go back and compare it to the original trio of films, it would certainly rate much higher than Empire and it was better than Phantom.