C:\Save\movie homepage\archive\a\attackoftheclones\review

Marcus Chan's Rating & Review:

Directed and Written by George Lucas
Starring Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor, Ian McDiarmid, Samuel L. Jackson, Anthony Daniels, Frank Oz, Kenny Baker and Christopher Lee
USA, 2002, 124 minutes

*This review contains spoilers

I have never been raped, and as a Star Wars fan, watching "Attack of the Clones" is the closest experience I have. And it's not just about getting raped, it's about watching all your favorite characters and in fact the whole Star Wars saga getting raped too - raped and tortured and raped - by none but the creator, the man who started it all, the man who gave us the Star Wars dream, none other than George Lucas himself. To me, the experience of this film feels much like seeing a painter throw away his work, or a writer tear his manuscript into shreds. It's all about a man who destroys his own achievements. However good Episode III may be, "Attack of the Clones" will remain a stain in the Star Wars saga.

This film fails NOT because of the story, but rather how it is executed. The romance, which I think killed this film, is brought out in the worst possible way. Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) and Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman) should fall in love, but not in this way. Their scenes are handled with zero subtlety and their lines feels like a sharp stick through the ear. Just think: Padme is talking about the birds in the sky and Anakin is talking about sand. Their dialogues are so bad they make those in even "Pearl Harbor" sound like poetry. And there is simply no substance in the relationship, they are in love just because George Lucas asks them to. In "The Empire Strikes Back" - the best Star Wars film in my opinion - the relationship between Han and Leia builds up through their experience (of being pursued by the Imperial fleet and the off-screen events in the gap between Episode IV and V), here Anakin and Padme fall in love like they are arranged to. I sense absolutely no chemistry between them, their love is just a pile of cliches taken from a thousand bad Hollywood movies.

The failure of the romance is another proof that George Lucas is a man of ideas, but not too good a scriptwriter. His Star Wars scripts are never top-notch, but the story behind them provides the back-up. The decent scripts of "A New Hope" and "The Empire Strikes Back", coupled with the magnificent story and the grand scheme of things in the background, give rise to two of the best films I have watched. In "Return of the Jedi" and "The Phantom Menace", Lucas' weak screenwriting begins to surface, but the result is still good - the flaws being compensated again by the remarkable backdrop. In "Attack of the Clones", Lucas simply loses it - the script is so unbearable even the interesting background can do little help.

There exist in "Attack of the Clones" some of the worst plot devices and screenwritings I have ever seen in a Star Wars film, and they are not confined to the drama. The death scene of Shmi Skywalker could not have been less odd, the asteroid dogfight is boring (and no score, why?), the arena exeuction sequences and the three dumb monsters are simply lame. The only scene I can think of that is entertaining from start to finish is the Kamino cloning factory tour that happens in the first hour. The actions near the end are good looking, but I can't stop thinking that they can be better. Basically, what Lucas does nowadays is to put a lot of a lot of CG objects in the same spot and let them deal with themselves. Numbers, apparently, are more important than choreography and set design in Lucas' mind these days.

I am surprised by the fact that despite all the extravagant effects I was most of the time not entertained. There is a serious lack of fun in the script, partly because Lucas has so much to deal with he has to rush through all the things in a frenzy. What plagues the scripts of this film and "The Phantom Menace" is that Lucas is preoccupied by the task of making them consistent with the original trilogy, and the fact that his writings are nowhere near good means he has to do it at the expense of fun and character development.

The characters are slightly more interesting than they were in "The Phantom Menace", but apparently still not enough. Among the ones who have improved are Obi-won Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), who has a few colorful dialogues with Anakin, Mace Windu (Sameul L. Jackson) and Count Dooku (Christopher Lee), a better developed (but not too original) villain than Darth Maul. The performances by Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman, on the other hand, are disappointing probably because of Lucas' direction instead of their abilities as actors. There are a number of scenes where Christensen truly looks like what we expect Anakin Skywalker to be, but the way he speaks simply does not work, not to mention his anger always strike too suddenly and too obviously. Padme, on other hand, looks much better than she does in "The Phantom Menace" (thanks to the costumes) but remains wooden most of the time. Yoda, the Jedi master famous for his annoying reverse speech, is simply murdered by George Lucas, who arranges him to fight with a mini-lightsaber and jump around like an electrocuted monkey. Am I the only one who thinks a true Jedi master does not need a lightsaber to beat his opponent?

The destruction of the Yoda character reflects the reality of "Attack of the Clones", a film that spans for over two hours but adds so little to the Star Wars saga. To those who love Star Wars only for its effects, this film is worth ten times the price of their tickets, but for those who look for things beyond nostalgia and eye candy, they will be gravely disappointed by the many things this film has promised but failed to deliver - the romance, the energy, the creativity. If your mind is clear enough, it will strike you that like "The Phantom Menace", "Attack of the Clones" merely employs the assets built by the first three films, without contributing anything back.