Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)
Three years on from the disaster that was Episode I, could George Lucas pull something out of the bag (that wasn’t a pile of tripe)? Well, yes and no. This film is set about 10 or 12 years after The Phantom Menace and we see that Obi-wan (McGregor) has now become a Jedi master and Anakin (Christensen) has become his padawan. Queen Amidala (Portman) is no longer the queen (her term had ended) and is instead the Senator for Naboo. An attempt is made on Amidala’s life and Obi-wan, along with Anakin, are sent to investigate.
Their investigations lead Obi-wan to visit Kamino where he finds that a long-dead Jedi had ordered a clone army to be created. Here, he also finds bounty hunter Jango Fett and his son Boba. As Jango tries to escape, Obi-wan follows him to Geonosis where he finds Count Dooku (Christopher Lee) who is plotting with the Sith. Obi-wan is captured.
Meanwhile, Anakin and Amildala have ended up on Tatooine looking for Anakin’s mother. They find that she has been kidnapped by Tusken Raiders and Anakin goes searching for her, only to have her die in his arms. He goes nuts and kills all the Sand People, thus showing he is open to the Dark Side. Upon his return, they recieve and relay a message from Obi-wan saying where he is and they set off to rescue him. They get caught but handily the rest of the Jedi order turns up to rescue them. Unfortunately, there are too many droids for the Jedi to fight off but fortunately the clone army turn up just in time to stop a full scale massacre.
As the battle appears to be won, Count Dooku makes his escape but not before he has fought and beaten Obi-wan, Anakin (who also loses an arm) and a crazy, jumping Yoda.
So is it any good? Well, yes and no. The storyline showing Anakin’s resentment of being told what to do by Obi-wan is wooden and clumsy (which applies to most of Christensen’s performance actually). Jar-jar is still alive. There is too much obvious CGI. However, Mace Windu (Samuel L Jackson) and Yoda are cool and there is a little more to the story than Episode I. The cityscapes look more impressive and the Star Wars world we know and love starts to come to life with nods in the direction of Bladerunner and Fifth Element along the way.
I can’t help but feel that this and Episode I should be trimmed down and rolled into one movie that would be eminently more watchable than the two as they stand. Overall it’s engaging but not that good. The next installment is really where the rubber hits the road as far as proper plot is concerned though…
Overall: 5/10