Star Wars: Attack of the Clones

Our Review

The middle prequel is where the romance was supposed to make us care about Darth Vader’s fall, and it is the least convincing love story ever staged at this budget. Anakin and Padme wander picnic meadows reciting lines about sand, and Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman, both capable actors, deliver them like hostages. I don’t like sand is the meme, but the whole courtship is at that level. The tragedy needs this romance to work, and it never once does.

Everything around it is a mixed bag that tilts decent. The detective story is actually interesting: Obi-Wan chases a dart to a cloning planet and finds an army the Republic never ordered, and Ewan McGregor, increasingly doing a young Alec Guinness impression, is reliably fun doing it. The colossal ground battle at the end finally shows the Clone Wars the title promised, and the arena sequence with the three heroes chained to pillars is matinee spectacle done right.

Christopher Lee saunters in as Count Dooku and instantly feels like he belongs, an elegant villain for a franchise that had forgotten elegance. Yoda igniting a lightsaber is either the best or worst moment in Star Wars depending on your constitution, and I admit I grinned. The digital photography looks flat and over lit, whole sets feel like concept art, and the less said about the droid factory video game sequence the better. It moves, it entertains in stretches, it never moves you. Five out of ten.