Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones (2002) Review

Time: 142 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence
Cast:
Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi
Natalie Portman as Senator Padmé Amidala
Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker
Ian McDiarmid as Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious
Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu
Christopher Lee as Count Dooku/Darth Tyranus
Anthony Daniels as C-3PO
Kenny Baker as R2-D2
Frank Oz as the voice of Yoda
Director: George Lucas

The film is set ten years after the Battle of Naboo, when the galaxy is on the brink of civil war. Under the leadership of renegade Jedi Master Count Dooku (Christopher Lee), thousands of systems threaten to secede from the Republic. When an assassination attempt is made on Senator Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman), the former Queen of Naboo, Jedi apprentice Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) is assigned to protect her, while his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) is assigned to investigate the assassination attempt. Soon the Jedi are drawn into the heart of the separatist movement, and the beginning of a new threat to the galaxy: the Clone Wars.

I said before watching Attack of the Clones that it would be better than Phantom Menace, despite some calling it the worst Star Wars movie. After seeing this movie I still believe that, however it’s still not a very good film either. The dialogue is still bland, some of the characters aren’t well written, and it has one of the worst romances in movies I’ve seen. It still has some good ideas and potential, they just aren’t fully realised.

This film is only slightly better written than The Phantom Menace but I can give credit to this film for introducing the Clone Wars, it wasn’t just an origin story for the Stormtroopers, it led to a lot of interesting stories in the Star Wars universe. The dialogue is still emotionless, particularly with the Jedi, however I wasn’t getting frustrated like I was with Phantom, with the exception of the dialogue between Anakin and Padme, which is very cheesy and really let the actors down. Overall the story is better than Phantom and it has some good ideas, however it needed to be put together better.

Like I said in the past, the actors aren’t to blame for their performances, it’s the writing that lets them down. Hayden Christensen suffered greatly from this, most of the dialogue he delivers you don’t buy but that’s the same for most of the actors. It’s not all bad for him though, there is a moment halfway through the movie where he is great, as he doesn’t have to deliver any bad dialogue and can effectively act visually. Natalie Portman is the same as she was in The Phantom Menace, maybe worse as she and Christensen have forced romantic dialogue and no chemistry. Ewan McGregor was really good however, in the previous film he never seemed like Obi Wan but here, he seems like a younger Alec Guinness and can make some of the dialogue seem credible. I liked seeing Jango Fett in action, even though I don’t think that it was necessary showing the origin of Boba Fett. I also really liked seeing Christopher Lee as a villain but the film should’ve used him more, at least he played a bigger part in the story than Darth Maul.

There are quite a lot of battle scenes that I enjoyed but you can definitely tell that they are fake because of the CGI overload. They weren’t as painful as the ones in Phantom Menace, but the effects still weren’t very good. The soundtrack by John Williams is excellent, that, and the sound effects are the only elements that are consistently great throughout the Star Wars movies.

I still say that The Phantom Menace is the worst Star Wars movie and Attack of the Clones is better than it. However it still has a lot of flaws in the writing, dialogue and effects. I think the main reason why Attack of the Clones gets more hate is because it wasn’t that much better than Phantom Menace, and it’s still not a good movie. I still do like this film more though, I was more interested in the story, I wasn’t bored (for the most part) and it had some pretty good ideas.

Advertisement