The Internet Movie Database Movie Reviews
CinemaSins 1 CinemaSins 2
Suck, suck, sucky. Suck. Suckity-suck-suck. The suckage factor on this one is HUGE. Bad. Icky poo-poo. Ewww.
My one comforting thought is that I didn’t actually PAY for this movie, since I used a free ticket I got for my birthday.*
If you really MUST read my long rant about this awful flick, you’re welcome to, but it contains SPOILERS (if it’s possible to spoil a dog like this…)
Attack of the Clones! Duller than Tomb Raider! More ponderous dialogue than The Ten Commandments! Almost as numbingly awful as AI!
Nope, there are no dollar signs up top. Why? Because they reflect what I would actually have been willing to pay for the flick if I had known how good it was going in…and if I had known what a STINKER this was, I WOULDN’T HAVE GONE TO SEE IT AT ALL. Now, this is better than AI, where I would actually have paid cash money NOT to have seen it and to get that three hours of my life back…but still, bad enough.
Sigh. Where did George Lucas go wrong? He did some good movies, inc. the first three Star Wars movies (although Mr. Otter has always disagreed with me about the second and third of those…he liked this one better. I’ll keep him anyway.) Then I looked in IMDB…and Lucas hasn’t done a SINGLE THING since the third Star Wars movie except Young Indiana Jones, Star Wars and one attempt at writing and producing a real movie (Radioland Murders) that didn’t go well.
Here is a man who has rested on his laurels for 25 years, instead of being out there trying to improve his craft…and this movie is the result. Plus, of course, with the kind of mega-budget he has, you don’t have to hustle to make the movie better, because you have your audience already.
Where to begin? Firstly, it’s really hard to get excited about thrilling battles and chase scenes when you know the major characters are going to live through them all. Especially the big “Execution by Scary Alien Beasts” scene…execute whom? Two guys who die 20 years later, and a woman whom the audience already knows has to live until she spawns? Yawn. Ho. Hum. Virago: “A spelling bee would have been more exciting.” (This, by the way, is another instance of the Gloating Bond Villain syndrome; Christopher Lee could have just cut all their throats while they were helpless, but noooooooo…)
And of course we all know EXACTLY who the real bad guy is, and have known since the first time we saw him on the screen in the Phantom Menace. Hey, that senator looks JUST LIKE the evil old emperor in Star Wars…coincidence? I don’t think so…
And Hayden Christensen. Oh my, what an extremely wooden and lifeless actor HE is. I’ll be glad when he puts on the suit and James Earl Jones’ voice so we don’t have to look at him mouthing his lines any more…and what dialogue! Virago and Mr. Otter and I were giggling at the love scenes, they were so trite and awful…the actors should have been ashamed to take money for doing that in public.
And you know, Darth Vader really represents total, uncompromising, scary, ultimate evil to a lot of people in my generation…really hard to imagine him as this whiny, spoiled, idiot kid who is upset about his mommy. sigh. And give me a break, Anakin was about, what, 8 in the first movie? and it’s ten years later, so he’s 18? And Padme was 18? so she’s now 28? and she’s in love with him? and they look like they’re the same age? Hah. And aside from that, what 28 year old woman (a cosmopolitan ex-queen, political mover and shaker to boot) would find any reason to be interested in an 18 year old guy? Give me a break.
Ewan McGregor is not bad; he’s no Alec Guinness, but who is? He has some good credits, and may manage to keep these movies from killing his career…but if he has any conscience at all, he won’t put them on his resume. He’d better be praying to the movie gods not to make him another Malcolm McDowall…
And Natalie Portman. Not a honey, but cute, and we certainly did get to see a lot of her, but her costumes were kind of silly…every one of them was designed to look as formal and uncomfortable as possible while showing off a different body part each time. The guys’ costumes were much better. Why do movie costumers assume that women are going to wear stupid looking and uncomfortable stuff while the men get to dress sensibly? (maybe because that’s the history of fashion, oh well…)
There were a few good things: for one, the scenes of the hated Jar Jar Binks were short, and it looks like he’s becoming the dupe of the bad guys, so we can all hate and despise him more. And Yoda KICKS BUTT, loved it!
The special effects were really excellent, although there were a lot of instances of actors not looking in the right place at a creature who would be added later…a bit disconcerting. The one surprise (for me, since I try really hard not to read or hear ANYTHING about any movie I see before I see it) was that the clones in the clone wars came in on the GOOD GUYS’ side…obviously, that’s gonna change, but it was a good twist.
Still. If you have to see it, don’t pay full price. Go at the cheap times, or wait for it to come out on video and rent it from your local public library. If we all stop paying money for these things, Mr. Lucas will have to get a real job pumping gas or something…and at this point, that would be an improvement.
*Prompting my friend Virago, who gave me the free ticket, and who suffered through this thing with me, to realize that I had seen it for free and she had paid TWICE. Better you than me, I said.
theotterlimits 