Review of Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) by Brett C — 30 Dec 2014

Review In A Nutshell:

After the disappointment that was The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones redeems the trilogy with a decent entry that delivers more character development and a simplistic storyline. The film is a balanced screenplay that juggles back and forth between the romance of Anakin and Padme - which also covers the deeper development of Anakin and explores more of how he became who we expect him to be, while the other covers a larger story of internal corruption and cultural genocide.

The film holds its ground fairly well with its two storylines, ensuring accessibility and entertainment, but it is still far from the amazing efforts brought by the original trilogy. The romance of the film may be essential to the subsequent entries of the saga but it is heavily sentimental and manipulative, paired with an at times cringing performance by Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker.

Both storylines eventually converge into a climax that rivals the one shown on the Phantom Menace, elevating the scope of the battle and displaying the peak of computer generated imagery at the time. It also features a great duel between Count Dooku, but sadly he wasn't as compelling or as graceful as Darth Maul from the previous film.

Attack of the Clones brings the prequel trilogy back on a positive track, correcting many of the mistakes that were found in the previous film. I hope the upward trend continuous onto the next film.