Star Wars - Episode II, Attack of the Clones (Widescreen Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Worst Star Wars - too much like other films - poor Yoda
Review: First of all, all 4 SW movies have been exceptional with that certain charm and elegance that no other movies have matched. They all had something different, something superior, something completely otherworldly (or Star Wars worldly) in atmosphere and aspect. This movie had no charm, no elegance, no special Star Wars touch. It was way too much like so many other movies over the years. It used to be other movies were compared to Star Wars or they wanted to be Star Wars, but this movie wants to be every other movie.

We've all seen it before: the opening chase scenes were too reminiscent of Blade Runner and the Fifth Element; all the aliens in this film reminded me as a cross between Aliens and Starship Troopers, the latter mainly because of the fast pace of the computer generated aliens (there's a crab-like alien in the arena scene that looks like a copy of a Starship Troopers alien); then the arena scene is just like Gladiator and all other Sci-Fi arena/captive fight scenes.

That Star Wars touch was so lost from this film. If it weren't for the comic moments of C-3PO and the Yoda fight scene, I wouldn't have given this movie even one star. Each of those two elements give it a star each for me.

Every SW movie has had original, fast paced opening start. This movie opened with some very slow, sluggish scenes and finally ran into a Blade Runner/Fifth Element like chase through the city.

While I admit the middle to the end of the film was very fast paced and very action packed, it led nowhere and the scenes were way too laden with computer graphics. It seemed like all the actors filmed the entire movie on a soundstage and every element around them (characters and backgrounds) were completely computer digitized. The look of this film was a technological achievement in it's own right, but in doing so, the realistic, unbelievably lively Star Wars universe we knew and loved has now become so lifeless. Phantom's lavish, realistic, non-digital scenes like the ones flimed on location in that Italian palace were deeply missed.

Correct me if I am wrong but I could not recall one scene where Yoda was a puppet, as he was completely computer generated. Would have been fine for the fight scene but in all other scenes he should have been a puppet, with real 3 dimensional appearance. I put in my Phantom DVD and could not believe how much better Yoda looked in that film, as a puppet, over the dreadful looking cartoon-like being in AOTC. Someone in my theater actually cursed out "Yoda's a f------ computer" they were so upset, as I was, in seing what became of such an important Star Wars character. Dexter Jettser should have been an actor in a costume and mask, yet he too was a computer gen. 90% of the aliens in this film were computers and it took away that lifelike quality seen in so many fantastically created aliens in the other films.

This movie should have been compressed and perhaps joined with episode III as one movie, as for all the fast chases and action, not a whole lot happened in this flick.

Lucas' final film will have to be a 3-hour film packed with so much action and Star Wars magic of old, if there is any chance in returning my faith to the force.

As for the reviewers claiming AOTC is better than Phantom Menace, they are out of their mind. Jar Jar aside, Phantom had much more Star Wars mystique going on and a superb action packed final 1/2 hour. There were 4 things leading up to an excellent conclusion: Anakin trying to knock out the droids power source, the Gungans fighting the droid army, Obi and Qui fighting Maul, and Amidala trying to capture the Viceroy. AOTC had one final event, a duel between droids and the Jedi with their clones, and it did not even come to a conclusion. The droid army was not very menacing and Count Dooku was a very weak bad-guy character. The light saber duels with Dooku got nowhere and the fight scene choreography came nowhere close to Phantom's scenes. Where did the martial arts actor who played Darth Maul go? Please hire him back for the last movie, George!!!

Maybe this movie will grow on me with more viewings, as I did not care for ROTJ when I first saw it either, but I know it will never get better for me than the previous 4 films.

Oh well, 4 out of 5 ain't bad, which is better than the track record of the Rocky, Star Trek, and Alien series of flicks!

Rating:
Summary: just when I thought I wouldn't care less ...
Review: I figured there'd be no way I'd care as little about the characters in CLONES as I did in MENACE. So much for that. As a comput-o-graphix exhibition I found it amazing, but that novelty fades about 30 minutes in for me, leaving n o t h i n g compelling whatsoever. I had STAR WARS when I was a kid : now I have LORD OF THE RINGS, thank god...

Rating:
Summary: Good movie
Review: I really enjoyed this movie and its special effects. They are quite excellent and the movie can be funny at times. I can see why some people might not like it but still, everybody should go see it. Plus, Natalie Portaman is so fine, it is worth the price of admission alone.

Rating:
Summary: Attack on the box office....
Review: Well, the waiting is over and the highly anticipated second chapter in the set of prequels in the Star Wars series is here. Episode II is a faced paced ride that gives the fans some of the pieces of the puzzle that will eventually fall into place in the origin of Darth Vader. In "Attack of the Clones", Obi-wan Kenobi is now a Jedi master training his apprentice, Anakin. Amidala, now a senator, has survived an attempted assassination and the story follows the two Jedi knights as one tries to solve the mystery of Amidala's attacker and the other protects the former Queen of Naboo. This story incorporates the romance of Amidala and Anakin and the sinister plot involving the building of a Clone army to serve the dark, evil Lord Sidius. I won't give away any more plot points but there is plenty of action and amazing special effects that are a pleasure for the eye. The fight with Yoda and Count Dooku is a reward for the legion of fans that adore the little green one. The last 50 minutes or so will blow you away with the amount of special effects. It is well worth seeing---worth seeing more than once. I liked Episode I but I do think this one was faster paced and a better movie. I think Star Wars fans will most definitely be pleased and other movie goers, as well, will enjoy this film. Whets the appetite for the final film!

Rating:
Summary: Every bit as bad as TPM
Review: Same problems: CGI instead of story, no compelling bad guy, stupid droid scenes, ridiculous dialog. It all adds up to another Star Wars clunker which will soon find its way to the same dustbin as Phantom Menace. Whatever hope we had that Lucasw would rekindle the original series just died under the weight of two hours of [bad] movie. Within two weeks, everyone will be pinning their hopes on Ep III, and that one will [stink] in exactly the same way as the last two [stinked]. Lucas will make 100s of millions of dollars from this, so he has no reason to change.

Rating:
Summary: "Attack of the Clones" delivers !!!
Review: I was skeptical, as were numerous others in line with me on the night Episode 2 opened at 12:01 am.

For many reasons this was the 'make it or break it' point for SW fans regarding this new trilogy. Within moments of the opening crawl however, I was hooked.

I was blown away by every aspect of this picture. It had the feel of the classic trilogy (and the look, in certain scenes) but forged ahead with the reckless abandon that made the older films so enjoyable.

Some of the dialogue was trite, but for this fan, it was a welcome return to the land of his childhood. I have since seen SW:E2 twice and I plan on seeing it again and again.

It was truly an AWESOME piece of work with a real heart and a rhythm that adds another grand piece to George Lucas' masterful narrative puzzle.

One warning though...'getting' this movie rides heavily on having seen the other 4 SW pictures. There are many references and conclusions in this film that could really leave you clueless unless you had the understanding of the other films under your belt.

When you go see it...prepare to be blown away...

Rating:
Summary: Zzzzzzzz.......
Review: Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman star in the next episode of the epic Star Wars saga. This portion shows us a young and headstrong (And whiny!) Anakin Skywalker, bent on proving his worth as a Jedi Knight of the Republic. The peace in the universe is shattered at the abrupt assasination attempt on Senator Amidala, played by Portman. While The Jedi Council senses that there is trouble brewing somewhere in the universe, Anakin is assigned to protect Amidala on her home planet of Naboo. Obi-Wan also sets out to an unknown system only to discover a mysterious Clone army has been assembled under the orders of an unknown member of the Jedi Council. A terrible snore all in all, with breif comic releif from Jar Jar and C3PO to lighten the overwhelmingly boring dialogue. Who wrote this script? The characters are terribly bland, with acting as bad as some of the earlier Star Trek episodes. Not only that, but the script is littered with terribly bad cliches and puns that would make even your grandmother throw up. Even the hard core Star Wars fans may have trouble staying awake for this one. There is gross amounts of incoherently bad acting from Anakin, with a never ending amount of whining like "Obi-Wan never lets me do anything" and other similar types of ranting. Could someone buy this kid a toy already? Just get him to shut up ( I mean, c'mon, he already has a lightsaber). Then there are the clones. Wow.. Attack of the Clones... but just what do they attack??? There are brief instances in which they are actually seen in the entire film, and they are not even that exciting. And to make it worse, feeble attempts to make the film more interesting account for a good majority of the running time. Okay, Yoda with a lightsaber, that's pretty cool (Although Kermit the Frog with a pitchfork would be just as cool),it just can't pull the film from the dirt. The entire purpose of the film seems to get lost for a while as we traipse around the universe, and it is only in the conclusion that we realize why we sat here for a little more than two hours.

Rating:
Summary: BETTER THAN THE REST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: When I went to see Attack of the Cones I was hoping it wouldn't be as dissapointing as The Phantom Menace.And all I'm saying is that it wasn't. In fact it's better than the rest. The Jedi battles are better than in A New Hope,The Battle is bigger than the Empire Strikes Back and,well,it's just better than Return of the Jedi(And I won't mention ther Phantom Menace).This is a must see film. I've seen it twice already, and I enjoyed it both times. Surely it can beat Harry Potter and Spiderman. Still, I love this film and keep asking whether I can see it again some other time. This is, for the last time, a GGGRRREEEAAATTT!!! Film

And Yoda is hilarious when he fights!!!

Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good
Review: Wow! What a thrill-ride! Where to begin!?

There's quite a bit to enjoy in Episode II. First, if the guys who attended the "Fan Force" convention or whatever it's called in Indy recently and dressed up to get in line Wednesday night of the 12:01 showing are a 10.. and the saps who hate the whole saga are a 0... I'm probably an 8 or 9! I love what all of Star Wars has given us in entertainment since I was 9 years old.

First.. the movie is thoroughly packed with enjoyable action set-pieces. The best moments for me were 1) The Jango/Boba chase of ObiWan through the Asteroids... that scene is probably the most sophisticated sounding and looking star wars scene I've ever seen.. breathtaking and beautiful. 2) The 4-character saber fight at the end. 3) The Jango-ObiWan Kamino landing platform fight 4) Zam Assassin chase through Coruscent (forgive my mispellings here). 5) The arena battle pre-clones arrival 6) Arena battle post clones arrival too! Some other details worth mentioning... the gun ship blowing up behind our heroes.. and goes down sounding like a WW2 big plane... nice touch. Also.. the "field camera sudden shakey zoom" effect.. that was used at least 2 times. Hard to explain.. but I'm sure the folks at Lucasfilm know what I'm talking about. The use of missles was new and fun. The contrails coming off the tips of the Naboo Queen's ship at the beginning as it approaches the city... HOLY MOMMA! THAT WAS INCREDIBLE!

To be sure, there are some things I'd played out in my head that I would have like to have seen (in a way George can never win with folks like me dreaming the movie before I see it!).. like perhaps a more drawn-out telling of his attempt to rescue his mom.. maybe she and he start to escape but are then captured.. and he witnesses her being tortured.. to death.. and THEN he goes nutz and kills them all. I know George wants to keep the thing PG so I understand the short length of that dark scene.

I would have enjoyed more true chemistry and better more normal dialogue between Hayden and Natalie. But I know in the movies.. that's a total crapshoot. Getting Billy Crystal/Meg Ryan "couple chemistry" (or H.Ford/C. Fisher for that matter) is a rare achievement and I don't fault George for picking his leads. They certainly have the talent to pull it off ultimately in Ep. 3 and I'd bet they will. Some of the dialogue was just great actually... like the scene where Anakin reveals his Tuscan Raider massacre to Padme and sort of unravels... and the scene on the gunship after Padme falls out onto the sand dune... between ObiWan and Anakin. I liked the detail that the ship and wind noise were loud and they had to yell loud at each other to be heard.. It had a realism to it. The inclusion of little razzes and taunts/dialogue in the light saber battle at the end... THANK THE MAKER for that.

So yeah.. there was some weak dialogue in some spots. But no biggie! The casting choices continue to be great. After watching Michael Collins and Rob Roy.. who could blame Lucas for casting Liam Neeson. The same can be said of Episode 2 with Christopher Lee and Hayden Christenson. Much CGI work out there in the world of movies has well.. cheapened the art of CGI. It's nice to see the A-team of ILM in action here and what they accomplish is breathtaking in design, movement and sound.

I'm hoping Rick McCallum and George are reading through all of these reviews.. and I'd like to add my $0.02 about getting writing help for the dialogue and plot-flow from old masters Lawrence Kasdan (co Scr.writer on The Empire Strikes Back) and even Irvin Kershner (director of Empire) if he's still able (he's probably around 80 by now)... or perhaps director David Fincher's camp... and maybe the folks who were behind X-Men. Pay them a fee each! Why not?! Even if you only pick one of those sources and have them assist on Ep. 3 it can only improve the quality. You can certainly afford to do this!

Criticism aside, I feel like I've been given so many gifts with Episode 2.. I don't want to get greedy! Thanks for everything you did George! Nice job! Keep up the good work.

P.S. I've seen the movie digitally projected and regularly projected.. and WHOA.. the digital projection is just incredible! I looks like I could go to the front-row Clockwork Orange Malcolm McDowel seats and dive into the movie! I highly suggest making the extra effort to see it digitally projected - you will thank me!

Rating:
Summary: The Rise of the Empire.
Review: I will keep this short. AOTC was awesome. Just saw it last night. I was totally blown away and was not expecting what I saw. It was everything that TPM wasn't. Its a complete 180 degree turn from TPM. It ties in nicely with ESB & ROTJ. You get to see the Emperor, find out a little of how Anakin turns into a machine, and the music. We get to hear Darth Vader's theme music, as well as the Emperor's, and all the great Star Wars music that was not in TPM. It makes you drool for Episode III, but I guess we will have to wait three years. I hope we get to see how Darth Vader gets his full body armor, helmet, and breathing machine. I can't wait for this movie on DVD. A+.