Review: Attack of the Clones

[Neo]

hmmm. Better than Phantom this is but not great will ever be!

:::Plot:::

Young Anakin has to further his training before becoming a full fledged Jedi and to help, he and Obi-Wan are summoned by Senator Amidala's security to protect her from the occuring assassination attempts. It has been 10 long years for Annie since he has seen his one true love and his feelings cloud his judgement many times over.

Once the investigation begins into who the assassin is it weaves a tale of mystery, suspense, illegal cloning, and espionage that delves deep into the Jedi Council its self. EX-Jedi's come out of the woodwork and even some old enemies resurface for a bit of revenge. As if I have to ask, Can Anakin hold it together long enough to help Senator Amidala and come that much closer to becoming the prophet the Jedi's need or will he just slip to the darkside taking everything in around him?

:::Review:::

Although a far cry from making up for Phantom Menace, it was a lot better. It was great to see Yoda in a fight scene and the developing story as it happened in the books. It was great to see that JarJar was limited to about 5 minutes of on screen time although his new position leaves much to be desired by those who put him in such a powerful spot. Jango Fett was a welcome addition and to see the development of Boba was great!

The story was far better than that of PM and some things were better than some of the stuff I have seen in all the previous films. The cinemetography in this film was amazing! it was rough and raw, bringing you right down into the whole CGI action! The Stormtroo .. er ... Clones were also great! But with good comes the bad.

They really should have trained Samuel Jackson better in the whole lightsabre thing and it was awful to hear some of the forced lines that they made Lee push out. It was almost as if some of the actors were actually reading from a Cue Card and they just took the first take!

I know it is the point but I started to HATE Anakin about 5 minutes into the film and the guy who plays him, Hayden Christiansen I believe, was simply awful. Poorly cast in my opinion!!

Some very good comedic moments helped bring this film back up to about par for Lucas and the inside jokes were subtle yet very noticable for the fans. Lucas sort of held true to his word about making this one more for the fans. I wouldn't have gone to see this one had he not apologized for PM. Hopefully 3 will be better.

:::Rating:::

Better than PM, the new Matrix trailers, Christopher Lee, and a fight scene with Yoda helped give this film a generous 3 out of 5.

[Steven Millan]

            "Star Wars:Episode 2;Attack Of The Clones" is definitely a much,much better movie than "Phantom Menace".
               More mature,heavily action packed,a very exciting story,the politics(of the first trilogy,and the previous movie)are better explained here,the Jedi legacy is further explored here,
some great "droid" comedy from C-3P0(you'll see what I mean,especially in the factory scene), another great villain from Christopher Lee,a larger role for Yoda(who joins in on the action,which had the movie house loudly cheering),much better CGI FX, very less Jar Jar(Yipppeeeee!!!),and some great directing from the heavily damned George Lucas,who re-store his legacy here so well that this movie not only leave you anxious for Episode III,but hoping that he gets to make the third trilogy(Episodes 7-9),even if he has to hand over the reins to a filmmaker in the James Cameron/Peter Jackson/Sam Raimi calibre.
              In all:a more worthy "Star Wars" film that rightfully depicts Lucas' vision of the first trilogy,especially the way the fans(who he finally listened to)want to see it,and Roger Ebert can choke on a light sabre for once again hating another crowd pleasing movie.
             To quote an audience member(among those I saw this movie with),
                      " "Star Wars" Rules!!!"

[J.R.]

Ebert hated Clones? He was almost orgasmic in his praise for Phantom Menace. I liked the action but the romance...good god. The sappy dialog made me wince a few times and Natalie Portman...she'd easy on the eyes, but George, I'm begging you, get her some acting lessons. I can see the birth of Luke and Leia now: "Ooh. Oh, this is painful. Ah." But cut to the good stuff: Yoda whooping some serious ass and Samuel L. Jackson swinging around a purple lightsaber. Ah, yeah. I honestly would love to see a film made entirely around the premise of Yoda and Mace being themselves: a couple of bad mofos.

[Squishy]

Eh, critics, whattaya gonna do... Local fey film critic Mick LaSalle disliked Spider-Man but adored The Shadow. I've learned to read his reviews and do the opposite of what he recommends.

P.S.: George Lucas does not like input. From fans. From staff. From family. From anyone. He used to; that's why his older films are so much better. Certainly, you want to stay true to your vision, but an independent viewpoint can keep your feet on the ground. When you surround yourself with yes-men and buttlickers, and no one questions any of your decisions anymore, vanity makes you believe it is because all your decisions are absolutely right. Then you turn into Dan Quayle, smiling blankly in overconfident stupidity as you wait for the kid to add one more "e." Beware, George.

[Jay O'Connor]

One thing to recall in watching any of the Star Wars movies is simply that they are not meant to be stories in the normal sense.

Lucas is a big fan of Joseph Cambell and his "Power of Myth" writings.  Very interested in how certain 'archtype characters' play out across many society myths.  Star Wars is just a societal myth using the same archetypes.  Luke Skywalker is not really a person so much as a particular representation of an archetype.  

That's why the Star Wars movies are so short on character development, it's not really important to the myth/story.  Watching Star Wars is like reading a greek myth.  Hercules or Persues or whomever only exist as characters fulfilling a certain role in a story,  They aren't given any more character development or motivation that is absolutely minimalistically neccessary to drive their actions to play out the story.

Even the dialogue is often more like a mythical story than an actual conversation

[C. Hill]

Loved it.  Right up there with Empire in my opinion.  It never lost my attention once and I had an absolute blast watching it.  It was a great deal of fun and that's all that matters to me, and because of that I'm more than willing to overlook any of its little imperfections.
Ebert didn't like it, but he LOVED Phantom Menace.  That pretty much says it all right there.

[Mofo Rising]

Well, Jay, that "Joseph Campbell" is the idea.  But it sure felt like Lucas threw it all out for EPISODE I.  No soul.

Anyway, I thought ATTACK OF THE CLONES was fantastic.  Great through and through.  I'm sure I'll see better movies this year, but not many.

******SPOILERS THROUGHOUT THE FOLLOWING!*****

The film looked wonderful.  The sets, although very similar to other movies (BLADE RUNNER, Peter Jackson's LORD OF THE RINGS) still looked completely amazing.  The world was much more immersive than any of the previous films, as far as sheer looks go.

I also liked the performances.  Hayden Christensen I feel is going to bear the brunt of criticism for this movie.  But I feel he did a fine job portraying the young Anakin Skywalker.  Of course he's a whiny jerk, he does turn into Darth Vader, you know.  That's part of the movie.  I'm going to chalk up the majority of criticisms of his performance to jealousy by the worldwide fanboy audience.  (Not that I wholeheartedly endorse the performance, I'm just saying I enjoyed it.)

Plus I thought the story was very well put together.  There was quite a bit of alluding to the future movies going on, of course.  In fact, most of the movie was allusions to backstage machinations that we, the audience, are not informed of.  What is the story behind the manufacture of the clone army?  While we can certainly guess with some accuracy, we sure as hell don't know the whole answer.  All we can feel is that there is a dead set course to galactic war.  The next movie must be a bloodbath.

There is one part I feel was a fairly serious drawback.  C-3PO.  I know movies often require some sort of comedic release before the climax in order to give the audience a breather.  It's just that here it seemed so ill-timed and out of place.  In the first three movies, R2 and C-3PO were integral to the story line, so there bickering made sense.  Here it's just tacked on.  I didn't like that.

All in all, I enjoyed it very much, and I certainly will go back and see it on a digital projector.

Those are my opinions of the movie, if anybody bothers to read them.  I know I'm certainly going to dread having to listen to other's opinions.  Specifically of the backlash a movie of this sort requires.  I love to hear somebody talk about why they like something, hate to hear them talk about why they hate something.  Almost makes me want to swear off the internet for a while.  Almost.

And that Yoda fight kicked serious ass.

[Scott]

Jay I seen that Joseph Campbell/Bill Moyers special "Power of Myth" on PBS years ago. They did the interviews from Skywalker Ranch. Lucas let Campbell live there till he died around 10 years ago.

George Lucas also started out with Roger Corman just like Francis Ford Coppola. For most this is common knowledge, but I thought I would throw it in for some who may not know.

I loved the ATTACK OF THE CLONES and can't wait to see the next one. I never knew the stormtroopers were clones. The clone wars what an idea and to think he wrote this stuff years ago. Much better than Phantom Menace. I hope the next on tops them all with Anakin Skywalker turning to the darkside story line. Should be interesting.

Star Wars - A great film for all time (overplayed). Adventure in space, neat characters, creatures, music, etc.

Empire Strikes Back - The battle on the ice planet. Lukes battle with Darth Vader and the question of him being Lukes father.

Return of the Jedi - Luke as a Jedi master. Jabba the Hut, The family connections, the unmasking.

Phantom Menace - Its a piece that I guess Lucas felt he had to do and the fans wanted to see. Nothing special though. I didn't like it that much especially after all the anticipation.

Attack of the Clones - Great film. Just liked it and I was glad to see the story line and action back on track.

[jmc]

Somebody pointed out on Ebert's site that the reason some people seem to be having trouble with the newer films is that there's no Han Solo type character--a regular guy that people can relate to.   I had never thought of that before this person mentioned it, but I think it's right on the money.  

I still haven't seen it.  I will eventually, I guess.  I was really planning on skipping it, but it sounds like it's a big improvement over Episode I, which I didn't like at all.