Movie - Star Wars II- attack of the clones
Full title adds "episode II"
Score : 2/10 Year : 2002Director: George LucasCinematography: David TattersallMusic: John William Country: USA Language: English Duration: 2h22Writers: George Lucas (story and screenplay) ; Jonathan Hales (screenplay)
Full cast & team (IMDB)
As I said, prequels are most often a miss for me... and after a mediocre (4/10 scored) first prequel, I dislike this present one even more... In fact, I decided this second re-watching of it is my last, it's that bad and also quite problematic...
In this second prequel, the story starts on Naboo, in the in-universe year 22 BBY. (and that many years before the events of Star Wars IV : a new hope).
Ten years elapsed since chapter I. The Galactic Republic is facing a Separatist movement and the former queen and now Senator Padmé Amidala travels to Coruscant to vote on a project to create an army to help the Jedi to protect the Republic. The Jedi share new adventures and missions in this awfully written and directed sequel to chapter I...
Indeed, where do I even begin ?? I'll warn you ight now that some of these may contain spoilers, contrary to my usual habit of avoiding them.
Despite an improvement on some of the acting, we remain mostly with under achieved potentials, despite the presence of even bigger names in the cast...
There is still absolutely no emotional attachment to any of the characters, both those we know will still be there in the original trilogy, or those we know aren't to make it... This time, though, we have an additional issue caused by an oddly affected character in the story : Padmé. She is courted in a boring fashion by someone who admits an obsessive and narcissistic way. After initial rejection, she says yes AFTER this character's admission of a murderous act that should have made her recoil...
We talked about this at length with my spouse, how Padmé, as important as she is in a backstory to main characters from the the original trilogy, she is under-utilized, and horrendously written as a woman, by a man (in the first prequel) and two men in this second one... This romance is an absolute abomination, through and through ! Its chemistry stinks, as well.
We came up with so many different and much better ideas on how she should have been written...
Padmé, still... at some point, Lucas recreates a situation with a chain and gets her in a crop-top, thus showing her belly and sexualizing her, when the men around her remain fully clothes and don't even get a single tear! What a lame excuse and rather problematic, we thought. We already saw this, Lucas! This takes for me a whole notch on the costuming, because it's not only less lavish, but also more sexualizing.
Despite some improvement on cinematography, compared to the first prequel, this one's Yoda is really awful... I much prefer the puppet version from the originals! Also, lighting is so uneven!
Oh, another issue : it seems that attack of the clones revisits many movies, including Star Wars VI (the part with the chain), and some other scifi movies in landscapes and visuals, such as Metropolis, Blade Runner... Ok, these are important movies in the genre, but using them so much in long sequences isn't homage anymore. While at it, one scene is actually very Lord of the Rings based, and one can surmise this is the direct result of an addition to the cast. Additionally, we have borrowed scenes from 1950-70s gladiator movies, Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, making it feel like a fun fic, and lacking personal imagination.
The edit and pacing are even worse, with, again, scenes that are either far too long, or too short! There is almost no balance here, when part of the story is about BALANCE... so annoying when even a meta-effort isn't made.
I was glad that Jar Jar was quite reduced in role here, to get less silly moments, but, on the other hand, every single attempt at humor failed! We were aware that this and that were supposed to be funny, but we didn't even giggle. OOPS.
Gender and race balance ? where ? fewer POC, fewer alien races and getting rid of all women but one, sounds familiar ? oh yea, we're back to a sole woman in the entire movie, after mere minutes. Late 1990's proactive action was forgotten by 2000 when they filmed this.
Light saber fights ? only towards the end, and probably the best part of the entire movie... why make us wait when these fights are an integral part of the stories ? did someone forget them for a long stretch of writing sessions?
We have yet another battle that is what of those 'how can they miss from so close ?' and add another BIG issue : some people just appear out of nowhere at some location, as if they apparated... There are so many questions about that moment, like, wait, where did XYZ come from??? why now and not earlier, if you could ? wait, is this Star Wars, or Harry Potter ? (the latter had apparition, the former does not).
Far more disappointing than chapter I, attack of the clones fails to convince. It brings more questions, more problems, erodes gender and ethnic balance that were already precarious, it brings a very problematic and unappealing romance, sexualizes Padmé, lacks balance in pacing and lighting. It felt like a 3+ hours movie when the french dvd we got from the library is only 2h16 (speedup due to transfer).. It fails to bring forth any of its attempts at humor, there are basically only problems with chapters II... We decided to never rewatch it, and most probably neither of the other prequels at this point.
We cannot recommend it, it actually felt a chore and we waited for it to be over.
Casting : Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Samuel L. Jackson, Christopher Lee, Frank Oz, Ian McDiarmid, et al.
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