[5]

Part two of George Lucas’ Star Wars prequel trilogy is cluttered and over-produced like the previous installment, but it’s a modest improvement over part one, thanks in large part to an action-packed final act. Everything before that final act is long, winding, and rather dull. Lucas and co-screenwriter Jonathan Hales bank on cross-cutting narrative threads (ala The Empire Strikes Back) to carry most of the film. Trouble is, one of those threads is a clunky, stillborn love story and the other is a mystery lacking any suspense. In any case, these threads come together when the Anakin (Hayden Christiansen) and Padme (Natalie Portman) profess their love for one another and attempt to rescue Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) from an evil Sith Lord named Count Dooku (Hammer legend Christopher Lee). Dooku captures our heroes and sentences them to death in a gladiatorial arena against a trio of deadly monsters.

Only then, after nearly one hundred minutes, does Attack of the Clones stir to life, with all the Jedi and a large Clone Army arriving to wage war with Dooku and his separatist allies. We get to see little green Yoda (Frank Oz) kick some ass, leaping into the air and twirling acrobatically around Dooku in a lightsaber battle you might have trouble imagining, but the film pulls off this climactic moment quite well. Lee, as Dooku, is one of the few actors who feels perfectly natural in this film, making every stilted line work to his advantage. Only fellow Brit Ian McDiarmid, as Chancellor Palpatine (the future evil emperor) is as compelling. Everyone else, including the three heroic leads, struggles to create empathy or generate any charisma. Anakin is winy and annoying, Padme is dull and compliant, and Obi-Wan comes off cold and conceited.

Attack of the Clones is more watchable than the imbecilic The Phantom Menace, but it’s nowhere near as well made and entertaining as the original trilogy. The birth of the Empire and the fall of Anakin Skywalker deserved a much better, more streamlined, and far more emotionally involving script than this. In the twenty years since it’s original release, the film’s computer-generated imagery is not holding up, either. Large swaths of the film look like primitive Pixar animation. But as with any Star Wars movie, there’s gold to be found in Ben Burtt’s terrific sound design, John Williams’ music, and Trisha Biggar’s costume design. These three artists, along with those ever-reliable Brits, Lee and McDiarmid, are the diamonds in the digital rough.

With Samuel L. Jackson, Temuera Morrison, Anthony Daniels, and Pernilla August.

Oscar Nomination: Best Visual Effects