Attack of the Clones (2002)

Star Wars Movie #5 (Please click the link to read my review of Star Trek V: the Final Frontier)

Synopsis:  It's 142 minutes of sterile dialogue, whiny teenagers, and explosions...lots and lots of explosions.  

Blurb From the DVD Jacket: "The STAR WARS saga continues on DVD with Episode II ATTACK OF THE CLONES."

What Did I Learn?: If you're prepared to spend $115,000,000 to make a movie, you might want to focus on getting the storyline and dialogue just right before you blow the rest of your bankroll on flashy special effects.

You Might Like This Movie If: you know that the Star Wars franchise hadn't yet bottomed out in 2002. Yeesh....

Really?: 1) Funny how Owen Lars doesn’t recognize C-3PO in Star Wars, even though Threepio was actually living with the Lars family at the point when Anakin shows up. 2) So wait – Count Dooku (Christopher Lee) is the big villain, and he doesn’t appear until 76 minutes of the film have elapsed? 3) Padme makes Jar Jar a Senator, and he's the one who puts forth a motion that gives Palpatine special emergency powers. Um... isn't this woman supposed to have a keen intellect and sound judgement? 4) It's strange how neither Anakin nor Obi Wan are terribly concerned about making a scene in front of Padme and her entourage... as soon as Anakin starts mouthing off, wouldn't Obi Wan likely say: "we'll discuss this later", or something like that? The dialogue doesn't ring true. 5) Presumably, the Kaminoans spent ten years producing hundreds of thousands of clones for no money down. Do arms suppliers work that way?

Rating: See "Synopis". While many consider The Phantom Menace to be the worst of the Star Wars prequels, I actually found it to be more enjoyable than Attack of the Clones. Sure, the film is visually impressive, and both Ian McDiarmid and Christopher Lee deliver fine performances as the two Sith lords (I don't think I'm giving anything away with that information), but it takes a loooong time before  Palpatine's plot begins to reveal itself, and the audience is stuck in the meantime with action sequences that are so super-human they aren't exciting, too many formal meetings, and some of the most clichéd love scenes ever captured on film. I cannot recommend this movie. 5/10 stars.

Would it work for a Bad Movie Night?: Take a drink every time somebody addresses Padme as "Milady", or when a Jedi utters a variation of: "there's something fishy going on."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0121765/