Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones - 2/5

Coming off as only slightly more cohesive than the first episode, "Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones" (which, by the ways, is a pretty silly subtitle for the film) is still not all that good. Overall, in quality it's better than "The Phantom Menace" but it still suffers from many of the same flaws, just not as severely. This one is by far more fun and exciting and that says at least a little something.

Ten years have passed since the events of "The Phantom Menace" and Anakin (Christensen) is now apprentice to Obi-Won (McGregor). When an attempt on the life of Senator Amidala (Portman) brings the group together again, a new series of events will bring to light that an ex-Jedi named Dooku (the ever fucking awesome Christopher Lee) who is leading separatists against the Republic for which the Jedi Order works with. This leads Obi-Won in search of Amidala's assassin and leaves Anakin to guard Amidala. Entire galaxies are looking to go to war, so its up to our Jedis to put an end to it all.

Once again, the best parts of "Attack Of The Clones" happen to be the visuals. Lucas knows how to make this look damn epic (like always) if not somewhat cheesy at times, and the final act of the film is non-stop adrenaline bursts that borderline on feeling like a War film. This is where this film works its magic most and is the main reason to view it.

The problem with "Attack Of The Clones" stems once again from the general execution of the film. The pacing is much better this time around and the plot lines are at least far more entertaining with the twists and turns, but the writing is still pretty unforgiving. The dialogue is atrocious once again and the acting might just be as bad. Poor Christensen has the role of taking on Anakin Skywalker and watching him try to act with the poor dialogue and odd leaps of character arc is just painful to watch. The same goes with most of the characters and their potential movement as they attempt to overcome their own poor writing. This makes the film insanely hard to watch at times. Partner that with some completely off the wall scenes (almost anything having to do with the blooming love between Anakin and Amidala for example) that required acting and chemistry and the film crumbles right before your eyes.

There was much more potential with this film and more often than not it fails to meet it halfway. The action is good and the visuals stunning, but once again that's what this film mostly has going for it. Other than that, its slightly better than "Episode I" but barely.

DARTH VADER'S BAD ASS MOMENT OF THE FILM: Anakin Skywalker finds his mother kidnapped by Sand People and then proceeds to slaughter all of them. The slaughter itself is so bad ass that they have to cut away from it to still retain the PG rating for the film. We only find out later when he tells Amidala that he slaughtered all of them. All of them. All. Of. Them. Kids too. Like animals. Then he proceeds to cry poorly on camera. That. Is. Bad. Ass.

BONUS RANT: They build this cool idea that Master Windu (Samuel L. Jackson, the man of a million poor film choices) and Jengo Fett are going to duke it out towards the end. Then he just kills him. No fight. Oops. You suck bounty hunter and because you suck, you left the audience in a stupor of unfulfilled expectations. Damn. Tsk tsk. 

Written By Matt Reifschneider