Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)

 

Genre: Action/ Sci-fi

Time: 2h 22mins

Director: George Lucas

Quick Summary: Ten years after initially meeting, Anakin Skywalker shares a forbidden romance with Padmé Amidala, while Obi-Wan Kenobi discovers a secret clone army crafted for the Jedi.

I'll pretend that those beginning scenes of padme and anakin don't exist...

This was actually painful to get through I'll be honest. The sheet amount of cringe I did because of the beginning of Padmé and Anakin was just insane. I'm not sure who thought anything to do with those two were romantic, but I think they actually need to meet a woman. Anakin comes across more as a creepy stalker who gets angry if you politely say no thanks which honestly didn't help.

That aside, the start of Darth Vader's origin story begins through this and it is layer and layer of various events that you can and both can not feel sympathy towards him. It's such a mess of genuine manipulation, deceit and terrible things, with Anakin just being a pissy edgy bitch. You can see this guy is troubled and being used/ tested by many people and that would cause anyone to break, but the issue is they made him ridiculously "edgy" and broody it was difficult to take him seriously.

The other issue is while this whole origin story is going on, we also have the rise of the Galactic Empire going on which is another boat load of information chucked in at random times. So essentially what we get is random breaks in-between the terrible non-genuine romance plot with static, boring dialogue heavy infodumps on the current politics. I'm not sure what was worse to watch.

I am so glad we got more of Obi's sass and witt as that saved a lot of the duller scenes. He never failed to get me to laugh and is how comedic relief should be done. Ewan McGregor, though shoved a bit of a poor role originally had really made it so much better this time around.

I'll highly praise this film for something at least and that is the sound design. They heavily improved on the first one and it worked so damn well. The scene where Obi-Wan is chasing Jango Fett is the biggest highlight of this and I ate it right up as the bombs exploded. This also introduce a stunning variety of sprawling landscapes, crazy creatures, fanciful vehicles, and formidable weapons that honestly what keeps this film going. While there is a lot more CGI with the backgrounds I honestly still think they look okay and are still very well thought out, though the pure white interior design was hell for my eyes. Set-pieces range from a one-on-one battle between bounty hunter Jango Fett and Obi- Wan on the rainy platforms of Kamino to a gladiator-like fight against intergalactic monsters, which are also the main highlights of this and will forever stick with me.

Though the best fight for this film is the fight with Count Dooku (I could never take that name seriously). While the fight chorography felt a little off and it was hilarious to watch Master Yoda pingpong around everywhere, what sold me on this fight was the lighting. Once the power goes out we get a fantastical light show of red and blue lightsabers battling it out, and more than likely an internal battle of Good vs Evil for our little emo kid.  

My main issue with this one is that it feels long. It is the longest of the three and I felt it. A lot of scenes are really dragged out, and usually they were the more boring ones that I didn't have much interest in, admittedly they were the ones with Anakin and Padmé as they were just difficult to sit through without groaning. As well we didn't really get any action, aide from Jango and Obi-s fist fight, until the end, and then the villain for this one is thrown in during the last quarter so we didn't really get much time with them. Which is a real shame, because they were honestly pretty entertaining to watch. The gladiator styled fight was really interesting to watch along with the all out battle when the Jedi's come to the rescue. 

In my opinion this is the weakest of the three prequels, only because this had a lot of missed potential. The trap that was laid out for both Anakin and the Galactic Empire could have been done so much better if they didn't focus so much on the Clones (a substory that was really set up for the third film) and the cliche romance.  At least they graced us with minimal Jar Jar. 

6/10

"Anakin: When I got to them we got into aggressive negotiations.

Padme: Aggressive negotiations? What's that?

Anakin: Ah, well, it's negotiations with a lightsaber."

 "You wanna buy some death-sticks?

[Obi-Wan executes the Jedi Mind Trick]

Obi-Wan Kenobi: You don't want to sell me death sticks.

Ah, I don't want to sell you death sticks.

Obi-Wan Kenobi: You want to go home and rethink your life.

I want to go home and rethink my life"