One of the better Playstation 3 games, but laughable as a movie

Rating: 4/10 (7 April 2007)

I was so excited to see this that when we got a free Cinemax preview, this was the first movie I watched. (sarcasm off) It follows the exploits of Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi as they make their way through some sort of war between the Republic and the Separatists, while at the same time Anakin has a lot of conversations with his girlfriend and also goes over to the dark side of the force. A few major problems here:
1) The acting and dialog are beyond pathetic. I can only imagine George Lucas storming around the set yelling "Less emotion!", "Say it like you don't mean it!", and "Monotone, please!". The characters seems almost totally disconnected with what's going on in the movie. I've never seen more dispirited performances. As Count Dokoo says- "You have hate, you have anger, but you don't use them".
2) The special effects. This movie is all CGI, I wonder if there were more than 3 actual human beings on camera. This stuff all looks like it's right out of a Playstation 3 game. Although the scenes and effects are nothing if not bombastic, it doesn't look real. Worse yet, Lucas isn't concerned with realism, he's more concerned with how much junk he can squeeze into every digital camera frame. Many of the CGI characters look downright humorous in their lack of detail. It's especially telling that Lucas seems to have put more work into the environments than the characters, as people are obviously his lowest priority. There's a huge space battle at the beginning, and Anakin and Obi-Wan fly their fighters through it like a couple of motorcyclists weaving their way through a traffic jam. The trouble is the viewer has no idea which ships are fighting for which side, and there really doesn't seem to be too much fighting going on. The climactic battle at the end, on a planet which is covered in molten lave, reminded me of a "boss battle" in a video game. Although these environments could have been quite interesting, the fact that they're all CGI and don't look real destroys the interest and leaves one feeling like they're watching someone else play a video game.
3) The plot. Apparently there's a war between the Republic and some other force, maybe they're separatists, maybe some robot called General Grievous controls them, maybe they're in league with Emperor Palpatine, I have no idea. One wonders why the robotic general doesn't make a backup copy of himself, thereby making himself virtually invincible. Lucas isn't good at telling anything but the simplest story, and he makes a mess out of this complex plot. The scenes with Anakin's girlfriend are good for nothing but running to the fridge to get another beer. The same could truthfully be said about any scene which doesn't involve any sort of shooting, chopping, or use of the force.
4) The action. I got bored watching Anakin and Obi Wan mow through droids with their light sabers within the first 30 seconds. There were hours more of this yawn-inducing spinning a whooshing to come. What really ruins it is half these droids speak like 6-year old kids talking through a voice synthesizer. They're supposed to be formidable, but they're stupid. Some of the droids look like they belong on a Tele-Tubbies episode. I already mentioned the space battle at the beginning, in which you can't tell which ships belong to which side and the whole thing rushes past so fast that you don't get much of a sense of anything. The whole middle part of the movie is just a bunch of talking, silliness with Yoda who Lucas tries very hard to make look powerful and angry but only succeeded in making me laugh. And puh-leeze, listening to this little green blob of computer animation put his predicates before his subjects is just getting really old. Then there's the big battle at the end which looks exactly like a video game, followed by an epilogue where we're subjected to yet more laughable acting and eventually the original Star Wars theme music plays, reminding us how good these movies were 25 years ago, and how awful and downright childish they've become today.