An expected disappointment, but with some upsides.

Rating: 5/10 (22 May 2002)

Like many others worldwide, I went to see Episode II on its pre-premier here in Israel. Remembering the burning disappointment from Episode I, I went with a pessimistic approach. This was almost a week ago, and only after much contemplation with myself and my friends, have I managed to establish an opinion on what the movie succeeded, and failed, in doing, at least for me.
The Clone Wars is quite an improvement from Episode I, which I consider a true flop and a disgrace to the Star Wars saga. But I do not intend to discuss the first movie here, only for comparison where needed.
It is clear that Lucas learned from some of his mistakes and went on to create a movie that is much more reminiscent of the old Trilogy. The movie feels a lot closer to the Trilogy we all loved, using many elements and methods that fit this forgotten style. There was great attention to detail in most plot-elements, greatly reducing the number of plot-holes seen regularly in Episode I. The world created in this movie feels true, and behaves as one would expect. However, I cannot say as much for the characters in this movie. Allow me to elaborate:
I am an actor myself, and one of the first things that I understand is taught in any acting and directing school is that actions must always be justified. Any movie- or theater-goer automatically tries to find a logical explanation for the events that take place in a movie or play, because this is our human nature. However unreasonable an action is, if the character has a good reason to do it (no matter how bizarre), then the action immediately becomes believable, or at least acceptable, by the viewer. In this way, the viewer can relate to what goes on.
I have great respect for many, if not all of the actors that participated in "The Clone Wars", and have in the past admired their great skills in other movies. Sadly, in this movie most of the actors failed to come up with any motivation for their actions, any justification, and to me they give the feeling that acting scenes were made hastily, or that little or no work was done by the actors to ensure that their characters hold a steady and logical line of thought and action throughout the film. This phenomenon appears in most acting parts of the movie, noticeably so in the romantic scenes between Anakin and Padme, which appear to have been literally FORCED on the actors. They simply show no emotion to each other, and the resulting romantic interludes appear foney and tacky. The melodramatic music and gorgeous scenery (indeed!) and sets used in these scenes can barely make up for the loss of tension between the characters.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the actors have gone sour! I'm simply suggesting that there might have been a lack of time spent on understanding WHY the characters do what they do. The computer-animate characters, like Yoda and Watto displayed much more acting skill, in my opinion, than their flesh-and-blood colleagues.
George Lucas may have noticed this problem. Weather he did or did not, an awful lot of money and work was directed at the digitally-created CG scenes, which were spectacular and colossal in any scale. However, special-effects, no matter how grandiose, cannot constitute an entire movie. While watching the film, I had a strong feeling that Lucas was trying to IMPRESS me... The sheer amount of special-effects scenes was astonishing, but to me it seemed to mask the fact that very little attention was given to the problem I described above.
Again, most of the FX scenes were mind-blowing, including the hovercar chase, the Jedi-to-droid fight in the arena, and of course the Yoda-Lightsaber-Fighting scene which clearly showed how state-of-the-art computer graphics can create magic like never before. Sadly, as I've already stated, even all these scenes combined together cannot begin to compensate for the lack of a believable chain-of-events, that seem to "trigger" suddenly out of thin air without any reasonably explanation.
To sum it all up, I think that George Lucas has made a positive step forward to achieving another brilliant picture that comes close to the Trilogy, but he has to drop the notion that Special Effects are more powerful than an ensuing plot, and the magic that happens between characters. I think the film was targeted to a young audience, much like the Trilogy movies, but gave them format instead of contents. "A New Hope" won the affection of millions worldwide by telling a fantastic story, not by its toy-model animations, even if they appeared futuristic at the time. If he can come to understand this, perhaps George Lucas may turn the third film in the series into a hit that may match or surpass the greatness of the previous films.
Oh yeah, and R2D2 CAN FLY? HUH?!?