Review of Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) by Ben T — 01 Jun 2014

Spoilers.

After the disappointment that was the Phantom Menace fans were cautious going into Attack of the Clones and well this film was even worse. Attack of the Clones is a terrible movie. The acting is in someways better and in a lot of ways worse. Ewan McGregor is so much better in this film, he has a lot more to do and is quite possibly the best part of this film. Natalie Portman is again okay, her character is very flat and uninteresting but Portman does an okay job.

While Jake Lloyd was really bad, he was a kid so it wasn't really his fault, however Hayden Christensen is absolutely terrible. His line reading is absolutely awful, the scene where he talks about his hate of Tuskan Raiders is painful to watch. His sand speech is also terrible. He does this weird accent in parts, it's so weird. While Hayden Christensen is absolutely awful, no one except for a couple do a particularly great job. Samuel L Jackson is a brilliant actor but here he's so unbelievably bad. He puts no emotion into his peformance, talks and does nothing, then he turns up at the end with his purple lightsaber, beheads Jango Fett and has the creepiest serial killer look on his face. Then you have Christopher Lee, one of the best actors ever, to play the villain and he's barely in the film. He's introduced about an hour in and does virtually nothing. The rest of the cast like last time are all wasted. This film is written and directed by George Lucas and he did a really bad job. The direction in this film is awful, it feels like George Lucas was more interested with cgi than making a good film.

The writing is dreadful, the dialogue is so bad, like I mentioned earlier the sand scene is terribly written as is all the romantic scenes. Speaking of which the romance in this film is one of the worst movie romances ever. Why the hell did Padme fall in love with Anakin? He touches her up, creepily stares at her, then acts like a dick, then he brings a dead body home and tells her how he brutally murdered men, women and children. It such a shit romance and the lines are so corny and made me cringe. The action in this film is also a huge letdown. The chase scene at the start of the film is okay, I like a couple aspects of it but for the most part it's this very glossy overdone cgi mess. There's no tension in this scene as Obi-Wan and Anakin looks so bored and that's because it's all infront of a blue screen. The best action scene in the movie is the Obi-Wan and Jango Fett fight as it's more gritty and doesn't rely on Obi-Wan using his lightsaber. The conveyer belt scene is awful, it's just Anakin twirling around his lightsaber at fake cgi bugs while Padme is in a barrel. The action scene with all the Jedis in the arena should have been amazing and I loved it when I was younger but watching it again it was extremely underwhelming. The fight is very overly cgi and all the actors look very bored as they are all standing infront of a blue screen swinging at cgi droids. The end fight also with Anakin, Obi-Wan and Count Dooku is awful and quite possibly the worst lightsaber battle in all of Star Wars. The fight is very overly choreographed and it's painfully obvious that a stunt double with a cgi Christopher Lee face on is fighting, then Yoda turns up with his mini lightsaber, starts flipping round like a ball, it's just terrible. The action in this film is very underwhelming and that's because there are too many lightsabers, every action sequence has to have someone whip out a lightsaber its so boring, less is more! The cgi in this film is appalling. This film came out in 2002, the same year we got Gollum and wow do the effects in this film look shit. The many cgi characters look awful in this film, especially in the scene where Count Dooku is sitting at a table with lots of alien characters, that scene looks awful. The action scene with the clones vs the battle droids also looks awful. There is so much blue screen in this film and it looks terrible, there are many scenes of characters walking and talking in a blue screen and it all looks shocking. Just like the Phantom Menace this film is really boring, there are just so many long dull scenes that make this film a slog to sit through, this is the longest Star Wars film and it drags, by the time the film ended I was glad as this film is so hard to sit through. The comedy in this film is also dreadful, I think I laughed once at the death sticks scene, which is awful considering the amount of jokes in this film. While this film is terrible there are some good things in the film. The cinematography in the film is great, the shot of Anakin on the speeder bike is beautiful, as is a lot of this film, except for the shots of Anakin and Count Dooku fighting in the dark while twirling their lightsabers around, that looks really bad. The music is great but it's Star Wars, of course the music will be great. Without a doubt though my favourite scene in the movie is when Anakin finds his mother at the Tuskan Raider camp and she dies in his arms, causing him to let his rage get the better of him and kill all the Tuskan Raiders, that's a brilliant and very emotional scene, the only problem is it's too short. Overall Attack of the Clones is a boring and terrible film. I hate it and I don't want to watch it for an extremely long time. D+.