Star Wars Ep II: Attack of the Clones Review

As part of the build-up to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, here at BTG Lifestyle we’re reviewing all 6 Star Wars movies released so far, starting with the prequel trilogy and moving to the original trilogy after that.

If you haven’t read my review for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, I suggest you read that one first and come back to this post once you soaked up all the glory of my views on Episode I.

Click here to read my review for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

Okay, all done? Great, now let’s get into it. Attack of the Clones picks up ten years after Phantom Menace, and focuses on the blossoming romance between Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala. As we now know, they are **SPOILER** the parents of Luke and Leia.

George Lucas was quite adamant about the fact that while the expectation for Star Wars films is that they are predominantly sci-fi fantasy space films, this one is actually a love story at its core. Not that the two are mutually exclusive, but it’s definitely worth noting that Lucas made that distinction himself.

So what are my thoughts on the film? It’s bad. Really bad. Here’s why…

The Bad

Hayden Christensen

I hate throwing shade at anyone who’s part of a really big production. As someone who’s been striving (and struggling) for a while to get into the film industry locally, I understand how difficult it is to just get attention, and then excel on top of that.

But damn, this guy can not act at all. Or maybe the script was just terribly terrible? I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he was a bit better in Episode 3, but Attack of the Clones suffered because of this performance.

A Little Less Conversation

Attack of the Clones is an exposition movie. There’s a lot of people walking and talking to one another to convey details of the story and context for what’s happening at the moment. Most of these details pertain to Anakin and Padme’s forbidden love, the secret clone army, as well as the growing discontent with the Galactic Senate.

This is once again a result of a poor screenplay, where people have to just say things in uneventful scenes to convey information to the audience. And there are many big players (most notably the Jedi council) who do jack shit for the entire film.

The Clone… What Now?

This movie is called Attack of the Clones, but the clone story just seems to come out of nowhere. All we know is that some dude called Master Sifo-Dyas made the army. Ta-da! End of the why and we’re suddenly in this huge CGI battle where things are going nuts.

I personally enjoyed some of the battle sequences in this film, but I would have liked to have seen it all tied together in a neater fashion. As Lucas emphasized, this is indeed a love story, and the effect of that is that the rest of the narrative seems to be crammed into the film in a way that just doesn’t fit.

The Good

Less Jar Jar Binks

Yes! Thank goodness we don’t have to deal with seeing this damn beast as often as we did in Phantom Menace. Jar Jar Binks is not only an annoying character, but he actually screws up in ways that make the whole world fall to crap.

Let’s hope The Force Awakens is a good film, or JJ Abrams will forever be known as Jar Jar Abrams.

CGI Looks Better

I literally fell asleep during the first part of this film, but some parts of the battle in the huge stadium, and the pursuit that comes after were pretty damn entertaining, and didn’t look half bad. The CGI in deep space looks cool, and the cityscape where Anakin and Obi-Wan pursue a bounty hunter  looks decent for the 90’s.

That’s all I’ve got for you on the good side, and as you can see I was definitely clutching at straws. The truth about Attack of the Clones is that it’s a bit of a nothing movie, and is more of an exposition film than Phantom Menace ever was. It literally just introduces us to the new Anakin who we will see descend into darkness in the next film.

This should have been a great love story, but it was botched by poor writing, CGI overload, creepy “I’m-in-love-with-you” faces, and lots and lots of politics.

Rating: 4/10

Check out the trailer for Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones below:

The IMDB Synopsis for Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones reads as follows:

“Ten years after initially meeting, Anakin Skywalker shares a forbidden romance with Padmé, while Obi-Wan investigates an assassination attempt on the Senator and discovers a secret clone army crafted for the Jedi.”