The Pirate Review - Star Wars: Episode II

Well, it's better than The Phantom Menace, I'll give it that much. But Attack of the Clones still has some notable problems

Minor spoilers

"I've got a bad feeling about this."

This line has been uttered by at least one character in every Star Wars movie to date (this time around, Anakin Skywalker gets it). Coincidentally, it was also the exact reaction most people had when they discovered Episode II was going to be named Attack of the Clones. It sounded so... cheesy, like one of the B-movie titles Calvin and Hobbes used to watch when Mom and Dad were out for the night.

And yes, I realize George Lucas has said that Star Wars is supposed to be an elaborate homage to the old sci-fi serials of the 1930s and '40s. That's as may be, but this series hasn't garnered legions of fans based on its merits as a high-budget production of Flash Gordon. People love Star Wars because it works on multiple levels—as a straight science fiction adventure, a love story, a reiteration of the mythic archetype of the flawed hero, even as a life philosophy. It seems to have something for everyone. Kids enjoyed the original trilogy's sense of adventure and cuddly critters and how planets blew up real good, teens swooned over Han and Leia, adults identified with Luke's journey to manhood or saw parallels between "The Force" and spirituality. There was some depth beneath the flashiness. Can the same be said of the prequel films?

I saw Attack of the Clones in an unusual setting—a sort of opening-day command performance for übergeeks. One of the local Micromillionaires bought out a complete Thursday afternoon showing of the film at a downtown multiplex, then offered the tickets for sale at work. With the high percentage of Star Wars fans at Microsoft, the result was a theater stacked to the gills with fanboys. And they were SO ready to love this movie. But by the time the credits rolled, crowd reaction seemed pretty evenly divided—the guy behind us said, "Wow, let's get back in line!" and the one in front of us turned around and said, "Well, this tears it, George Lucas can't write romance to save his life."

Just as he showed us in The Phantom Menace, Lucas is a far better storyteller than a director or writer. That's not meant to be an accusation, just a statement of fact. Storytelling is a worthy art of its own, but it shouldn't be confused with the ability to create original scenes or dialogue. And make no mistake—though the movie has lots of impressive, showy locales thanks to the miracle of modern CGI, very few of them are original. The visuals, like a patchwork quilt, seem to be composed primarily of familiar material from other sources. (Bodies launching headlong into flying traffic? The Fifth Element. Night on a cosmopolitan city-planet, with flashy neon commercials everywhere? Blade Runner. Young lovers cavorting in a pastoral Italianate paradise? A Room with a View. Willowy aliens on a mostly submerged world? A.I. Millions of human beings grown like hydroponic crops under artificial conditions? The Matrix. A huge arena filled with savage spectators and man-eating beasts? Gladiator. Our heroes getting mixed up in factory machinery, with predictably disastrous results? It's a Warner Bros. cartoon—you can practically hear "Powerhouse" playing in the background.) As visually fascinating as this film is, there isn't much that's novel.

Then there's the problem of dialogue, which runs the gamut from clunky to excrescent. I'm a writer, so good dialogue is vitally important to me. It can make the difference between a lackluster film and one that sparkles with wit and passion. I don't even require characters to talk the way people do in the real world, as long as they talk the way we wish people would—see, for example, the wholly unbelievable but delightful banter in numerous screwball comedies, or just about any episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Unfortunately, Lucas' characters are given material that is neither inventive nor pedestrian—it's just plain embarrassing, and the actors seem to be painfully aware of it. You can see Natalie Portman strain to hold back the grimace as she says, "I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life," and Hayden Christensen's delivery of "You haven't changed a bit. You're exactly the way I remember you in my dreams," makes him come across more like a creepy stalker than a lovestruck teen. (George, buddy, if you ever used lines like this to pick up women, it's no wonder you've been single for 20 years.)

Is there anything to like about this movie? Well, yes. It is an improvement over The Phantom Menace in many ways. There is some progression in the development of Anakin Skywalker as a character. We can see the young Padawan still operates from a basic desire to do good, but he also possesses several potentially fatal flaws—cockiness, jealousy, obsessiveness, a deep-seated belief that his considerable natural talents go unacknowledged, and a fundamental inability to control his passions—that will eventually put him on the path to becoming the most famous asthmatic in movie history. Obi-Wan Kenobi has also matured from the hero-worshipping puppy dog of Phantom Menace to a full-fledged Jedi Master in his own right—with more humor, intelligence and cynicism, not to mention a certain condescending attitude toward his Padawan learner. He's not there yet, but you can believe he will eventually become the Ben Kenobi of Star Wars. The despised Jar-Jar Binks is kept to a minimum in this film, although he has an important role to play in the Republic's decline. The villains of the piece, Palpatine and Dooku, are consistently seven or eight moves ahead of the game—a nice touch for the fans who are keeping track of their shadowy machinations. Yoda has made a believable migration from puppetry to CGI, although I'll always love Frank Oz's Muppety portrayal of the little green Jedi Master best; further, the CGI work makes it possible for him to move in a very un-Yoda-like way in one scene—yes, it's funny, but it also stretches credibility beyond the breaking point.

Attack of the Clones, being a Star Wars movie, will draw legions of loyal fans to see it regardless of what the critics may say. But what's becoming readily apparent to even the most die-hard Star Wars fan is that George Lucas is never as good on his own as he is collaborating with others. Often he seems incapable of channeling some of his more heavy-handed impulses into creating a better film, and this time there is no one to get in the way (co-writer Jonathan Hales is actually one of his protégés). Perhaps it should not surprise us that Lucas made the decision to follow up a story of redemption with one of seduction, as there seem to be distinctive parallels between the Star Wars series and his own life—going from a young, idealistic unknown on a limited budget, to a powerful multimillionaire with the force of a mighty marketing juggernaut behind him. Somewhere along the journey from this to that, Lucas—much like his brainchild Anakin Skywalker—appears to have fallen victim to his own deep hubris.

A final pertinent quote:

"A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing."
—George Lucas

Try to keep that in mind for Episode III, Uncle George. Please.

Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones