I was watching Ewan McGregor play with wild polar bears the other day--did you see that?  It was on PBS.  He was in Churchill, Canada, and he went around with the bear catching experts, took pictures from the tour buses, got caught in a polar bear trap, and hung around in the local bars singing strange folk songs.  He even took some kids tricker-treating.  Great show...just gr...........what?  Oh, whoops, I'm supposed to be reviewing Episode II.  Okay, sorry about that folks...on to the review!

First, let me tell you that I have very mixed feelings about this movie.  Initially, I was much more enamored of it than I am now.  At one point I even placed it ahead of three out of the other four in my rankings (all except Empire).  But no longer.  I'd put it just ahead of Phantom, although it was a lot more uneven, in my opinion.  But enough of this; let's jump straight to the good, the bad, and the ugly, from my point of view:
 
 

The Good:

-Obi-Wan Kenobi.  He was, hands down, the best part of this movie.  Ewan McGregor has firmly taken the reins from Liam Neeson, and he's doing a stellar job of rendering the beloved character originally portrayed by the late Sir Alec Guiness.

-Yoda.  He's CGI this time, and surprisingly well rendered.  Oh yes, and he kicks some serious butt.

-The general plot.  It is complex enough that you have to think about it after the movie is over before it starts making sense.  For some it doesn't completely gel until at least the second viewing.  This can actually be considered to be a bad point as well!

-The theme of loss of freedom/democracy.  One of my favorite things about this movie; I love the way it parallels what's happening in this country as I write this.  A lot of the words that come out of Palpatine's mouth sound eerily like those of the man who now sits in the oval office....

-2/3 of the effects.  For most of the movie, they were effective (no pun intented) and skillfully done.

-The Sith.  Darth Tyrannus and Palpatine are both excellant.  Tyrannus has a certain presence that Maul lacked (even though I liked Maul too).  I loved the moment where he salutes Yoda before they battle--this man may be evil, but he also has class!

-Jango and Boba Fett.  Jango was a cool adversary, and Boba is just, well, a bratty little kid!  In a good way!

-Shmi's death scene and the slaughter of the Tusken Raiders.  This was perfectly done, and it really showed Anakin slipping to the Dark Side.  It's one of the few scenes where I think Anakin was well-acted.

-Some of the action sequences.  Specifically, the speeder chase through Coruscant, and the Jedi Fighter/Slave One chase through the asteroid field.  I found both to be exciting and rivetting.  I loved the sound effects and score during the speeder chase; this was the kind of feel the rest of the movie should have had.  Alas.  The chase through the asteroid field was an echo of the one from Empire, and I enjoyed it immensely.  At first I wasn't sure if I liked the seismic charges, but they've grown on me.  Jango and Boba reacting during all of this was great as well.
 

The Bad:

-The Padme/Anakin romance.  It was clumsily done, and did not click with a lot of people...including me.

-The movie has a rather muddled feeling about it.  Especially if you've only seen it once.

-The Kamino aliens.  They were okay, and to tell the truth, they've grown on me a bit...but the fact remains that they look sooooo CGI...and also like rejects from a Spielberg film (that is not meant as a good thing).

-The pacing was rather uneven.  Too slow after the initial Coruscant scenes, picking up again from Obi-Wan's fight with Jango onward, and much too fast during the last 20 minutes.

-Certain details or plot points didn't make much sense.  The whole conveyor belt scene, for example.  It wasn't even that interesting of a scene, and I fail to see what need there was for it, other than a clumsy device for Anakin to get his lightsaber chopped in half.

-Severe overdose on effects towards the end.  Lucas needs to use a little more restraint (has he never heard the old adage Less is More?).
 

The Ugly:

-The 'Anakin is having a bad dream' sequence.  That has got to be the worst scene ever in Star Wars.  If you don't know why I'm saying this, you're probably better off without an explanation.

-Darth Tyrannus's other name:  Count Dooku.  Okay, I'd really like to know what was going through George's head when he thought of this.  I can live with Jar Jar Binks...I can stomach Mace Windu, Sio Bibble, or Naboo.  But when you have such a dark, threatening villain, you need an equally dark and threatening name.  'Doo-koo', 'Doe-koo', however you want to pronounce it...this is not the name that made jawas tremble.  I try not to gag whenever I hear someone say this name, but the fact remains that it's ruined the tension in several scenes.  "I'll never join you, Dooku."

-Wooden acting throughout.  Each and every character (even Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Palpatine, all of whom I still liked) was acted with a wooden, emotionless style.  The most galling part is, this was done on purpose.  Lucas wanted the acting to feel like an old B-movie from the 30's, and he seems to have achieved it.  Too bad.

-Clunky dialogue.  Yes, when has that not been a problem in Star Wars?  But here it seemed to be a lot worse than normal.  This and the acting were mutually destructive to each other, of course.
 
 

Frankly, what I've seen most people complain about is the romance.  Did I find it hard to swallow?  Yes, I did.  The thing is, I feel the same way about Han/Leia--unlike most people, I was never convinced by that romance, and I possibly never will be.  Yet, The Empire Strikes Back, which is full of Han/Leia stuff, is my favorite Star Wars movie!  Not because of the romance, but in spite of it.

But here, the romance is handicapped by much more than simple lack of chemistry.  The clunky dialogue and wooden acting seemed to be at their worst with the romance stuff.  Between them, Anakin and Padme had most of the worst lines in the movie.  Now, I'm not saying that the Han/Leia romance was Shakespeare...but at least the acting was more realistic.

This gets back to the overall problem, mentioned above, of wooden acting.  It plagues everyone, even my favorites like Ewan McGregor or Christopher Lee.  I might be tempted to blame the actors, but I've seen so many of them in other movies and/or TV shows where they did act well.  Ewan McGregor, Ian McDiarmid, Oliver Ford Davies, Samuel L. Jackson, and Christopher Lee.....these are all top-notch actors in my book.  I have seen all of them do a great job of acting in other shows.  The problem is the way Lucas is directing them, and I wish someone would tell him that before Episode III.  *Sigh*  Why do I get the feeling that the third part of the prequel won't be as good as it could or should be?  I suppose I shouldn't give up hope just yet.....after all, there's still that big lightsaber duel we all know has to happen between Anakin and Obi-Wan.  I defy Lucas or anyone else to mess that up.

The one theme that resonated loudly with me was the theme of democracy falling to dictatorship.  This was downright eerie, if you take a moment to compare the things Palpatine is saying to what members of our own government, including the president, are talking about.  The idea of sacrificing certain freedoms during times of emergency applies to other eras as well, most notably to England under Churchill during WWII.  But it resonates with our current situation in a most disturbing way.  Palpatine's "I love democracy" from the senate scene and also his "Peace is our objective here, not war" from one of the deleted scenes sounds a lot like the rhetoric that comes from Bush's mouth.  Neither one of them means what they say, of course.
 

Anyway, after all's said and done, Attack of the Clones was a movie I wish I could love.  There are parts of it that I enjoy a great deal...and other parts which make me squirm with embarrassment for their poor quality.  To tell you the truth, all of Star Wars has paled in my mind, in comparison to Peter Jackson's excellent adaptation of Tolkein's Lord of the Rings.  As one who hopes to write scifi and fantasy for a living, I feel inspired by Tolkein's work...and put off by Lucas's.  Well, I guess that's to be expected, since Tolkein was a professor of language and a complete genius.....and George Lucas is, well, George Lucas.

But I don't want to seem ungrateful.  If it weren't for Lucas and his movies, there likely wouldn't even be a Lord of the Rings trilogy being brought to live-action film.  Lucas and company have advanced the medium, and their break-through efforts with special effects have set the standards for all.  So I take off my hat to you, George, and I thank you.

Now, if he could just make his own movies more enjoyable.

***1/2 out of *****  If it weren't for Ewan McGregor and Yoda, it wouldn't be as high.

Illani