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

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

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Saruman saves "Star Wars"
Review: I have a few things to say about this movie (and the less would be said the better), here they are:
1. Good ole Lucas completely succmbed to the mainstream of "Dungeons & Dragons" movie and such rubbish.
2. There are a lot of talented scriptwriters (Tracy R. Hickman ("Dragonlance" series), Chris Metzen ("Warcraft","Starcraft" storylines)),why Gl hasn't chosen them to write the script for this miserable movie?? Script grade: 0.1.
3.The love story gave a good impression of "dark, forbidden love" but the acting was the worse I ever seen. Acting grade:0.000000000001.
4.The only actor who actually saves the movie is Christopher Lee (cheers to Saruman and count Dracula) playing count Dooku. CHRISTOPHER LEE RULZ!!!
5.I symathize lord Sith (and Darth Maul+Count Dooku) for trying to wipe out all these pesky psychotic would be "dark lords" (aka Anakin Skywalker), idiotic senators who fall in love with the would be "dark lords" (aka Padme), stupid amphibians who even don't know to how speak proper english (Jar Jar STINKS (a lot)) and even more stupid Jedi Knights (aka Obi-Wan).
6.Give me a StarCraft movie instead.
7.The love scenes were worse than in "Titanic".
8.If you don't believe me that "Attack of the Clones' is the worst movie in the world, go watch it... But beware of the psychologic trauma that might occur to you after seeing so bad a movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: If this movie doesn't impress you what does?
Review: A lot of people, who must be really horrible unfun people to be around in real life hate this movie, Ep1 and the special editions. I really feel sorry for you people, the star wars movies make me feel good to be alive and spark my imagination and make me want to create. Virtualy every frame of this movie is so crammed with cool stuff I never tire of looking at it. The two battles at the end are things I've dreamed about seeing on the screen all my life. I loved the original movies, I had a star wars themed birthday parties for my 4,5 and 6 birthday, but I don't care about nostalgia, episodes 1 and 2 blow them away. Plus I've never wanted to make movies before, but seeing these movies has made me buy a camera and start storyboarding my ideas.
So to all you reviewers who rip on this movie, I feel sorry for you, it makes me happy and inspires me. If this movie doesn't impress you, what does? Shakespeare in Love? Denzel's latest? Man, I feel sorry for you.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Dumbed Down and Insulting
Review: Okay, my headline is a little coarse. I'm not really personally insulted -- just appalled that so much money, which could be better spent on something of real value, is wasted on this drivel.

A bad script can often be brought to life, as is proved over and again with actors and directors of real talent. Alas, no such people here. The leads should donate their salaries to the Actors' Home and go back to their Burger King jobs.

I don't mind being fooled -- it's part of the movie aesthetic. But deafening computer-generated effects at lightning speed are not remotely believable. Whoever invented these effects should be locked for a month in a blindingly lit room with plastic food.

It's been argued that the Star Wars films are intended not as realism but as comic books. Well, the original Alec Guinness-Harrison Ford offering was in many ways extremely realistic. For another thing, it was superbly acted. And the script, despite major weaknesses, was full of tongue-in-cheek wit. The only wit in the current films is the half one whose idea it was to film them.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A step up from Phantom Menace - but not much of one
Review: [THIS TEXT REFERS TO THE DVD WIDESCREEN.]

The classic Star Wars trilogy is, without question, one of science fiction's crowning achievements. When the "special editions" of the classic trilogy were released, the series received a huge revival, and rumors began to surface about a "new, prequel trilogy". In May of 2002, the second one of these prequels arrived in theatres. And now, the film has arrived on DVD! Read on for my review of Star Wars Episode II - Attack Of The Clones.

BASIC PLOT:
Ten years have passed since Episode I (meaning this takes place twenty years before the classic trilogy begins.) Anakin Skywalker is now a Jedi knight in training under Obi-Wan Kenobi. In these times, there have been a number of attempts to kill senator Amidala (she was queen of Naboo in Episode I.) Obi-Wan goes off to find the bounty hunter he feels may be responsible for the attacks, and Anakin and Amidala stay on Naboo for safety purposes. It's not long before an intense battle between good and evil is raging once again.

FILM OPINIONS:
This film was a good idea, but, like Episode I, it just wasn't executed all that well. The major flaw is, without question, the horrible script (read other reviews to see what I mean.) The lightsabers look better than ever, and some of the new (or is it old?) technology is cool, but the film ultimately falls flat. We're introduced to a number of characters, but we don't get very much character development (though I was glad to see Samuel L. Jackson's Mace Windu character finally see some action.) Jango Fett was a cool idea for a character, but we see and learn too much about him (Boba Fett's mysterious character is one of the things that made him one of the best characters in the classic trilogy!) Yoda looks excellent in computer animated form, and the duel between him and Count Dooku is very entertaining. But the movie still suffers from a number of problems, including plotholes. The acting is another problem. Although Hayden Christensen plays Anakin Skywalker quite well, he whines WAY TOO MUCH. Also, George Lucas has sank to a new low with this film by going with the "sex sells" philosophy. We see Anakin's bare chest, and some of those outfits Amidala wears are unusually erotic/revealing (there's NOT any nudity, but I'm shock to see Lucas sink this low.) In the entire classic trilogy, the only questionable outfit anyone ever wore was Leia's attire when she was captured by Jabba. This film has more questionable clothing than the entire classic trilogy combined! The premonitions to the future events were nice, but unnecessary. This film could have been great - but it wasn't.

DVD:
The saving grace here is the DVD. There's a whole second disc of bonus material. In addition to a "making of" featurette and the typical DVD stuff, we get the holy grail of DVD extras - deleted scenes. No, these scenes don't reveal anything too important, but they're still a nice touch. There is no shortage of bonus footage here. In fact, there is so much of it, that if you watch all of it, it will be longer than the actual film! Lucasfilm really outdid themselves here.

OVERALL:
Although this was a mediocre film through and through, I feel that an excellent job was done on the DVD. If you're new to the Star Wars series, start with the CLASSIC trilogy. Don't bother with the prequels unless you're a Star Wars nerd who can't get enough of the series.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Second best of the Star Wars films.
Review: Fine and Much better follow up to The Phantom Menace plants the seeds of what is to come but lacks the conviction to take it forward to where it should be. It needed to be darker, and the love story needed more to make people believed that they were really in love. The script needed work as well, and I think a good rewrite could have been ordered if they took a little more time with what they were trying to do.

I will say that its probably the best entry in the saga since "Empire" but it lacks that film's conviction to take it all the way home.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Admittedly, It Does Take A Little While To Get Used To.
Review: Before I wrote this review, Attack of the Clones was just finishing on Cinemax. I saw it in theatres when it first came out, and saw it on video twice after that. I don't exactly know why I watched it all those times, because I found it annoying and not as good as everyone made it out to be.

However, this year changed it around for me. I tried to find reasons to hate this movie to bring up debates with my Star Wars loving friends. Yes there are a few indiscretions and such that I find pointless, but it is a good movie to pass the time with, something I didn't want to admit the first few times I sat through it. Sure the acting can be stiff as a board at times, and the dialogue made me burst out in laughter on many occasions, yet I stuck it out and feel partially addicted to Star Wars once again. I feel like I'm twelve again, remembering the time when the originals were remastered and put into theatres.

Along with an enjoyable way to spend a few hours in college, Star Wars ignites my imagination and I have produced so many good papers, drawings, topics, etc. all because I was willing to escape reality...in a galaxy far, far away...while eating Domino's...intoxicated.

I guess the point I am trying to make is this. Star Wars is nostalgia for me. I can't hate the series, even though I tried so very hard to hate Clones, because the series as grown on me ever since I was 2. I recommend everybody see it at least once. Give in to your guilty pleasures. A side note to those who write negative reviews or hate the movie: If I can change my perspective (and I seriously thought this was pitiful until I saw it by chance on Cinemax), I am sure you can as well.

However, if the movie is still on your s**t list, you can always sit around with a close group of friends, drink Skyy Vodka, and pretend you are on Mystery Science Theater 3000 with Tom Servo, Crow, and Mike making fun of this flick like there is no tomorrow!

Peace and drive home safely...

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: This is really frightening...
Review: "I hate sand... its so small and coarse, and it gets everywhere... but here everything is soft"

Here is an excerpt of the meandering, abysmal dialogue that plagues Attack of the Clones. The line was supposed to be romantic.
It really shouldn't be so much of a shock that the movie is so heartless and cold, since the majority of the scenes are computer rendered. This is really bluring the line between film and cartoon in a scary way. Is it just me, or does CG really not look that good when its overused?
Did anyone else notice that in the colloseum part of the movie, where anakin breaks the chains attatched to his hands, that THE CHAINS WERE COMPUTER RENDERED! THE CHAINS! WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! What made George Lucas think that Computer Rendered chains would look better than real ones! IT LOOKS BAD GEORGE! REALLY BAD!
Why is it so hard for film makers to realize that Computer Graphics should ONLY be used when it will look better than a costume, or a model, or WHATEVER! The point of special effects is to make a movie look as REAL and believable as possible!
So why were the storm troopers rendered in CG?
All it does is make the movie look more like Toy Story... and after a while it gets really hard to suspend your disbelief.

There is no heart in this movie... really very little plot, absolutely ridiculous scenarios that almost seem to mimic old video game levels... its just quite sad....
Just pray that someday George Lucas will regain some fragment of his sanity and bring out the ORIGINAL, Unedited (unenhanced) Star Wars movies on DVD.... so we can all forget that these movies happened...
Kind of like we did with that horrible Star Wars Christmas Special!
I give this movie one star, not just because its a terrible film, but also because its a frightening offense on filmmaking in general. Let us hope that others collectively wake up and stop assigning every difficult special effect to the computer geeks to take care of... it gets rid of all the heart and imagination in these kinds of movies.
This has to stop.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: EXCELENTE
Review: Hola, estoy escribiendo esto en castellano, porque soy argentino y puedo expresarme más correctamente.

Bien, empecemos esta crítica.
He leído muchísimas críticas negativas y ultra-venenosas hacia este hermoso film. Críticas que no entiendo, of course. Un guión coherente, actuaciones decentes, otras no tanto (Hayden... aunque podría haberlo hecho peor...), efectos especiales realmente INCREÍBLES, y YODA PELEANDO. ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡SSSSSSIIIIIIIII!!!!! Lo que los fans siempre quisieron ver...

Tanto Episode I, como esta que nos compete, Episode II, son dos películas fantásticas. Tal vez Episode I es un tanto naif, pero es entretenida. Me parece que hay cosas que la mayoría no entiende: las precuelas se sitúan en un contexto MUY diferente al de la Trilogía Original. No vas a encontrar a Han Solo. Ése personaje es único. Apuesto mi vida a que si George Lucas hubiese puesto un personaje similar, todos se hubieran quejado porque ese personaje sería un calco de Han. Estoy seguro. El contexto de las precuelas es diferente. Sólo Episode III se va a acercar un poco a la OT, pero tampoco va a revivirla. No estamos ante películas parecidas estilísticamente, por eso se las diferencia en trilogías. La OT es mucho mas concisa en cuanto al plot: la Rebelión quiere deshacerse del Imperio, y devolverle la paz a la galaxia. Bastante simple. En cambio, las precuelas abordan muchos más temas, y se hace un tanto más complicado contarlas. El tema del Elegido, de los planes secretos que tiene Darth "Palpatine" Sidious", las Guerras Clónicas, etc. Además, es Star Wars. Seamos honestos. En Episode I, la pelea de Qui-Gon y Obi-Wan contra Darth Maul es una de las mejores escenas del cine de todos los tiempos. Asi que, me parece, habría que dejar de lado un poco esa comparación con la OT (aunque, a esta altura, es un tanto inútil pretender eso).

No temas, adquirí esta joya contemporánea, y tomá al cine por lo que es: Cine, ficción. No realidad.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Time won't be kind to these prequels.
Review: My interest in Star Wars is rather casual. I'll watch the movies in theaters, but not with the massive expectations so many people have. Truth be told, the only film in the series to truly impress me on virtually every level was The Empire Strikes Back (Star Wars was great fun as well, though with weaker dialogue and acting than ESB). But movies like these are rare, these big-budget slices of escapism that harken back to the old days of Saturday matinee serials, only with (much) higher production values and (in this case, marginally) better acting. Damn, I seriously can't wait for Indiana Jones 4.

I actually looked forward to Attack of the Clones. The premise offered more opportunities, the special effects would be slicker than ever, and surely, even George Lucas could have improved his writing skills after the results we saw in Phantom Menace. But in the end, it's not much of an improvement over Menace, in fact, I'm not even sure it's an improvement at all. Despite the occasional energetic effort behind the camera, Attack of the Clones is mostly lifeless, pedestrian, and boring.

It starts off quite well, with a failed assassination attempt on Senator Amidala's (Natalie Portman) life. For protection, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan Mcgregor) and his apprentice Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) are assigned as her bodyguards. If you'll recall, Anakin had a bit of a crush on Amidala in Phantom Menace and nothing has changed the ten years since. Anyway, another assassination attempt on Amidala fails yet again, with Kenobi and Anakin hot on the heels of the would-be assassin. This leads to a spectacular speeder chase that puts the similar sequence in The Fifth Element to complete shame. So far, so good.

But whatever hopes I had for the movie were shattered soon afterward, when the film's core plot, the love story, became the central focus. I'm actually a sucker for a good "forbidden love" romance; I loved Titanic, enjoyed Sabrina, and even found myself mildly won over by Fools Rush In. But the love story here is so dull, it bears nothing in the way of vitality or genuine chemistry. It's like watching a brother and sister kiss (disturbing memories of Leia and Luke's kiss are all flooding back in).

Though Christensen and Portman fail to strike any sparks, it's not entirely their faults. George Lucas and Jonathan Hales' dialogue is horribly silly, there's actually a scene where Anakin compares and contrasts Amidala with sand, of all things. The culmination of Amidala's declaration of love for Anakin doesn't feel right, especially since it comes so soon after his murderous actions, which she apparently forgets almost immediately after he confesses to her.

Christensen is an actor with maybe a kernel of potential. I've never seen Life as a House, but I keep hearing a lot of good things about him. As Anakin, he displays many of the qualities we expect: he's arrogant, hot-headed, rash, and temperamental. Christensen's delivery of the dialogue could easily lead one to assume that he's a no-talent pretty boy actor, but it's a bit more complex than that. Lucas' dialogue almost never does him any favors, even if the script does give him the opportunity to expand his ever-growing hostile personality. That the Jedi council doesn't pay more attention to him is a bit of a mystery, they know the kid's got potential (that's an understatement if I ever heard one), but even when he slaughters an entire tribe of Tusken raiders, he's not even berated for such actions (to be fair, it's not like he told anyone, though Yoda clearly sensed his feelings during the massacre).

Natalie Portman is a proven talent, but much like Christensen, you could never guess it from her performance. She gives it her best try, but to no avail, coming off as one-dimensional, basically a perfectly safe role model for young girls everywhere without the slightest hint of flaw in her noble personality. It's a portrayal of cartoonish decency, written as only George Lucas could have.

Like The Empire Strikes Back, the story splits into two narratives. Sharing screen time with the love story is Obi-Wan Kenobi's investigation of the assassination attempts. Hercule Poirot (or Indiana Jones, for that matter, who proved quite the clever historian at putting together clues to find his sacred artifact), he is not. Piecing together clues is obviously not Kenobi's forte. The script goes out of its way to make him look like an idiot (and the people he's investigating even bigger idiots!); take for instance, the scene where he finds no trace of a star system in the planetary archives, and has to inquire Yoda and a class of padewan learners why it's not on the map (duh, it was removed).

His investigation leads him to the water-logged planet of Kamino. This is by far the most visually stimulating of the film's newly introduced worlds (too bad it's all glanced over). The Kaminoans live on ports supported in the same way an oil rig would be, only presumably in a far more complex manner, given the size of these habitats.

Kenobi discovers a clone army that was apparently ordered by a Jedi master named Sifo-Diyas, except the guy's been dead for ten years. The army was cloned from bounty hunter Jango Fett (Temuera Morrison), whose New Zealand accent leads me to believe there's a planet full of Australians somewhere in that galaxy.

This converging storyline is only somewhat more interesting than the love story, but at least it sets up a couple of reasonably cool (albeit very short) action sequences, including Kenobi's hair-raising battle with Fett and an asteroid chase that'll remind many of The Empire Strikes Back. Ewan Mcgregor is a fine actor, easily the best of the film's leads, so you at least get the joy of watching this guy emulate Alec Guinness almost perfectly.

Attack of the Clones is a much darker picture than Phantom Menace, but not necessarily any better as a result. The pacing here is almost as weak (in both films, we have fun bookending sequences and an elongated boring middle segment) and the climactic action sequences (six of them in the last thirty-five minutes!) are something of a mixed bag.

My attention snapped back when the film suddenly came to life around the hour fifty-minute mark with a knockout battle sequence between several Jedi and hundreds of droids inside a massive coliseum. This setpiece boasts the film's most rousing scene, a scuffle between Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson, one of my faves, but clearly acting from a script beneath his talents), Jango Fett, and a giant rhino-like creature. The creature first charges at Windu, then charges at Fett, and finally there's a spectacularly rousing showdown between Windu and Fett that had my blood boiling. Damn, I wish this film had more moments like that.

The succeeding action sequences don't fare as well, particularly the lightsaber duel between Anakin and evil Count Dooku (played well by Christopher Lee), which is quite a few steps backward from the climactic duel in Phantom Menace. Without the athletic moves of Ray Park, it's basically an eighty-year old man swinging a big stick of light at a twenty-year old, pretty boy actor.

The film's silly title sparked a lot of arguments from defensive Star Wars fans (one friend of mine actually defended the title by saying it was good because it informed us what the plot would be covering) (that is, without a doubt, the lamest reasoning I've ever heard regarding the quality of a movie's title). But Lucas said he named the movie this way as an ode to the Saturday Matinee serials the film was inspired by. Contrasting this with Lucas' Indiana Jones trilogy, it's quite clear virtually all of that series' high quality was the result of Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, and John Williams. Lucas proves he can't craft a rousing adventure and not even Williams' rousing score can change that.
** 1/2 out of *****

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Attack of the Worst Film Ever Made
Review: Based on Lucas' intentions alone, this has to be the worst film I have ever endured in my entire life.

The only comfort I found in witnessing the juvenile and grossly unbelievable events of Anakin's turn to the dark side was Hayden's woeful acting, and equally cliched dialogue. "I don't like sand - it's rough and coarse, and gets everywhere. Not like here". What the?????

But the crux of the film, the romance between Anakin and Padme, is so, so unconvincing that it completely destroys the entire premise of the movie. Where was the attraction between these two 'lovers'? How could Padme have fallen so easily for someone who is essentially emotionally retarded? Oh sorry, I guess I missed it amongst all those overblown CGI sets and effects.

And that's really the point here. LUCAS GIVES THE ACTORS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO WORK WITH, besides a blue screen and some of the worst dialogue to invade our DVD players. The short shoot time (something like 6 weeks) shows that Lucas cared more about his special effects team than he did producing thoughtful and emotional performances from his actors. I can just imagine Hayden delivering his somewhat spasm-like performance for the scene after he killed the sand people in just one take, with Lucas exclaiming in an almost Ed Wood like glee "Cut - that's perfect!"

I mean come on. Watch Hayden struggle with the line - "I killed them. I killed them all. And not just the men, I killed the women, and the children!" Don't blame Hayden, the fault lies with the director/writer, and Lucas has the dubious honor of being both.

To top it all off the CGI doesn't even look that good. When the opening scene played out, I was sure I was watching some low tech FMV from a 1995 PC CD-ROM computer game. The actors LOOK LIKE they're in front of a blue screen on a sound stage, and that my friends, is unforgivable. Why Lucas has such a fatal attraction to CGI is unfathomable considering the live action magic that occured in Episodes 4,5 and 6.

And don't for a second think that this film is better than the Phantom Menace. That film was bad, but this is far, far worse. The length of Attack of the Clones certainly underpins this.

Bottom line, this film is devoid of soul or substance - Lucas has really outdone himself on this one, in turn obliterating the legacy of a truly legendary trilogy. Attack of the Clones is 2 and a half hours of cliched utter trite.


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