Unwatchable

Rating: 1/10 (9 March 2006)

This may be the single worst movie ever made. And I have seen some real clunkers. The fall of George Lucas is utterly stunning. This man co-wrote and directed two of the greatest movies of all time -- American Graffiti and the original 1977 Star Wars. But that was three decades ago and he has spent way too much time isolated from anyone who can say no to him.
To begin with the entire "prequel trilogy" is doomed from the start because the ending of the story is already known. Anyone who saw the original movies knows that Anakin Skywalker turns to the dark side, becomes Darth Vader, Palpatine/Emperor's right-hand man. We know that Vader's children were Luke and Leia, that their mother died in childbirth, that Obi-Wan Kenobi went into exile on Tatooine, etc., etc.
For any movie, whether comedy, drama, thriller, sci-fi, to generate interest, it must first and foremost make the audience wonder how the story is going to turn out. That is impossible here. We all know exactly how the story is going to turn out. We know nothing more at the end of the prequel trilogy than we did at the beginning. All Lucas did was raise lots of continuity problems due to inconsistencies with the original trilogy.
Visually, the movie is unwatchable. This is CGI pornography. The battles are incoherent chaos. When the jedi and Sith flop and leap around in fights they look like characters in a video game, which is what in effect they are.
On top of that, this movie has the absolute worst dialogue and acting I have ever seen in a studio production. The actors themselves are not bad actors -- we have all seen McGregor, Jackson, Portman, Smits, etc., give good performances elsewhere. They simply have nothing to work with. There is not a scrap of human interest anywhere in this movie. The level of acting and dialogue here is far below that of a daytime soap opera.
This movie is an utter embarrassment and a desecration of everything George Lucas once stood for and accomplished. It is a crime that Lucas had over $100 million to spend on this abomination when there are so many talented aspiring filmmakers in the world who could create gripping, memorable films for 1/100th of the price, but will never get the chance.