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    		•

    FILMS

    Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones (2002)
  • Starring Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Christopher Lee, Samuel L. Jackson, Frank Oz, Ian McDiarmid, Pernilla August, Temuera Morrison, Jimmy Smits

  • Directed by George Lucas


    • If it's true that opinions are like assholes, then since May 16, 2002, everyone has been going pantsless. People everywhere, on and off the Internet, have been vocalizing their thoughts and feelings on Attack of the Clones. (In fact, opinions sprouted up even before the film came out—which, in and of itself, is on the far side of ridiculous.) A few weeks have passed since I've seen the film and now it's my turn to remove my trousers and show you my opinion.

    (Fair spoiler warning: I plan on talking about details of this film in the following paragraphs. If you haven't seen the film yet, you might want to stop reading.)

    Where shall I begin? Ever since I saw Clones I've been pondering exactly how I was going to write about this movie. I suppose I should follow the Star Wars motto and "trust my feelings." Sure. That's good. How 'bout feelings and a brief anecdote?

    I went and saw Episode II on opening day. It was a mid-day show, and most of the rabid fanboys had stayed up late the previous evening seeing the midnight showing, so the theater was full but there wasn't a stampede. All things being equal, it was a good environment to sit back and watch the latest installment in what is a very popular, and one of my favorite, franchises. Accompanying me were two friends, Joe and Jeff. I consider them both big fans of Star Wars, but not fanboys. They have the ability to discern good from bad when it comes to the series.

    Usually after a movie is over, I'll turn to the person/people I came with and remark about how good or bad the past two hours had been. Sometimes, however, I wait to get out of the theater before the comments start. And sometimes I don't say anything until we're outside of the multiplex, standing on the sidewalk. After Clones, Joe, Jeff, and I got up, said nothing and walked out. We stood in line to go to the bathroom. Said nothing. We stepped out of the moviehouse, saying nothing. We walked up the block and finally one of us cracked (I think it was me.) "So, what did you think?" What followed was not very positive. And over the next two hours, the three of us fed off one another's hatefulness toward this film. Well, perhaps "hatefulness" is too harsh a word.

    We picked it apart. Every problem we discovered and discussed would triggered another idea, another thought, another discrepancy or inconsistency in the film. This conversation lasted two hours, by the end of which, I had a headache. This is not hyperbole to express a point. I mean this literally. My head was pounding. I didn't want to hear anther word, good or bad, about this film. I was literally sick of it. I'm still pretty sick of it and am unsure how much of a review I actually want to write.

    I was disappointed by this movie. Greatly so. And, believe it or not, I actually thought The Phantom Menace was better—but only because it had a kick-ass Jedi fight scene at the end. It offered something new and original that we'd never seen before. Episode II had a fight scene, and while it was impressive, it was somewhat familiar. And the very end of the movie, with the Jedi's fighting was a huge letdown for me. It had the potential to be a fantastic scene, but it feel flat at every cut of the camera. (Of course, people may argue that if Lucas had ended it with a similar Jedi scene as the end of Episode I then I'd be complaining about that, instead, right now. Probably not, because anytime you have Jedi's fighting with their lightsabers, I'm there, dude.)

    I have no interest in going over plot and detail in this review. You've all seen it (or not) and you're already pantsless with opinion, regardless. I'm just going to point out a few things, both good and bad. Some of these are specific, some of them are general. Some may piss you off, while others you'll agree with. Enjoy!

  • Conjecture: If it was any other movie, and not the Star Wars franchise, I believe that it would've received much harsher criticism. Obviously there's no way to prove it, so it's somewhat of a fool's discussion.
  • Bollocks: George Lucas as "auteur," is a sack of big, hairy bollocks. His dialogue is stilted and mostly lame (future or not, you still have to convey emotions to a human audience in the here and now, George) and his directing is, at best, capable. He should stick with special effects, because he's just not qualified to do the rest.
  • Comic relief: It is possible to have comic relief in a film without a) slowing the film down b) making a dramatic scene silly or c) "putting in something for the kids." It's unanimous, Jar Jar sucked in the first film. At least he was someone that we hated already. But Episode II takes two characters who are fairly innocuous and mildly entertaining from Episodes IV, V, and VI, namely R2-D2 and C-3PO, and turned them into idiots. Kids are smart—don't make the movie dumb just for them.
  • Failing in love: The love story, which I'm guessing is really supposed to be one of the A plots for this film, failed and failed hard. Some of it is the acting, some the directing, but again, I'm blaming the writing. I swear, when they were rolling around in the grass I could barely contain my bowels. I expected The Sound of Music to start playing. I didn't feel an ounce of emotion or real draw between the two young lovers. As far as I could tell the only reason why these two people get married at the end of the film is because it's predestined by the other films. They have to, therefore they will. Bad writing, George. No cookies for you!
  • Bunged-up plot: There's an assassination attempt on Padmé. We'll send her back to her planet with one bodyguard. Let's make that bodyguard a young Jedi who has a history of not doing what he's told, and giving lip to his elders. Not a smart move, Jedi Council (and Lucas).
  • A friend's suggestion: Jeff pointed this one out to me (and let me know if I'm misquoting you, dude) ... the first three films are about the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker, right? The greatest irony is that in the first two films it's the least interesting storyline.
  • Consistency? What consistency?: All that "midichlorian" talk? Heh, that was just to fool the locals into letting us abduct their child.
  • Jar Jar's only in this film for a bit: Yes, but we come to realize that he is indirectly responsible for the rise of the Emperor and the deaths of millions. Lucas, what kind of message are you sending to the children? Next thing we'll discover that Barney the Dinosaur inadvertantly ran Aushwitz. (OK, so I may be going overboard here, but you get the idea.)
  • Wookin' pa nub: "SWJ (single white Jedi), late teens, seeking SWS (single white senator). I like the idea of dictators and I'm suicidal. I enjoy slaughtering entire tribes of misunderstood, nomadic desert-dwellers. Not just men, either. I'm talking women and children. Someone please love me. I'm dark and need saving."
  • Factory scene: Lame lame lame. It felt like a video game and was, oh, did I mention, lame?
  • Just a little bit of work: The biggest disappointment about this film is that it wouldn't have taken very much to turn, what I thought was a piece of crap movie, into a fantastic, exciting movie with a compelling storyline. A little nip here and tuck there and I could be happy. ... I could've been happy!! Do you hear me!?
  • A good point: I like Portman getting her shirt ripped. That was cool. Babes showing belly is pretty cool. Also dig that white outfit she was wearing at the end. Very nice.
  • The end: The beginning of the end, when Sam Jackson showed up was pretty cool. The battles scenes here were fairly fast-paced and exciting, it built to a nice climax, and then pooped on me with the final scenes when everyone battles Christopher Lee.
  • More and more: I could go on for days about things that I did/didn't like about this film. You get the gist. If you're really interested in knowing them all, give me a call. Please note that I don't hate this film. What you're reading here is just severe disappointment and fatigue. There are good things about this film. Lightsabers are cool and the special effects are absolutely stunning. But SFX do not a good movie make. Lucas would do well to understand this.

    • Joe, Jeff, and I came to the conclusion that many of the plot problems in the film could be explained away—but not by any information the film offers. Personally, I would accept this if I thought that Lucas had these excuses for his defense. But I just don't have that much faith in him.

    Here's one ferinstance: Yoda needs a cane to walk. And usually, if he's walking far distances, he makes use of a floaty-chair-thingy. Then why, may I ask, can he turn into a little, green Bruce Lee and start doing some mad acrobatics at the end of the flick? Simple. It was explained to me that Jedi Masters never, ever use The Force unless it's absolutely necessary. Thus, Yoda's gimpy, until it's time to whack some bozos. At the end of the film, he channels pimpin' amounts of The Force through his little body, busts a chub, and whips out his lightsaber. When the fight is over, he stops channeling The Force, and picks up his cane again. Huh. Makes sense to me. However, it's important to note that this was not explained to me by Lucas. Jeff explained it to me. If I thought this was Lucas' explanation, I wouldn't be as upset. However, I'll bet dollars to donuts that Lucas wanted Yoda to kick ass in this film. And now he could achieve this digitally, no longer requiring Frank Oz's hand up Yoda's puppet rectum. Well, hell. Dy-no-mite! Let's have Yoda beat some ass!No need to explain anything, though.

    *sigh*

    In the past few weeks I have been very careful to tell people, "I didn't like it" as opposed to "It sucks." Because that's how I feel. I didn't like it, but there are a lot of people who did, so obviously it doesn't suck.

    To be honest, just typing this review is making my brain hurt again. There will always be fanboys who will staunchly defend anything with the label Star Wars on it, just as there will always be people who want to dislike something that's popular, because, well, sometimes it's fun to hate. Both will argue and neither will be right. For me, the bottom line is this: Episode II has a kernel of a good movie surrounded by a lot of bad stuff. Deep down, there's a good story here. It's just disappointing that Lucas couldn't get out of his own way to find that good stuff.