Weakest Star Wars film. It's just entertaining.

Like with The Phantom Menace, I loved this a lot as a child but as I was growing up, I could see what most of the flaws were. Admittedly, Attack Of The Clones is a lot of fun and is perhaps a Star Wars film just for entertainment. I would perhaps say that this as well as Episode I is in the Star Wars franchise like Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone and Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets are in the Harry Potter franchise: just pieces of entertainment with no crucial events going on that effects the whole series. Yes, they all need to be entertaining but at the end of the day, because there needed to be so many crucial events from all three prequels, we only see all those events occur, really, in Revenge Of The Sith.


I mean, now the more I watch Attack Of The Clones, the easier I can see what the flaws are and what could have been done to improve. Well, the most obvious is the soppy and almost unconvincing love story between Anakin and Padmé. Star Wars is meant to be full of adventure, not like a soap opera! I mean, action-romance-action-romance-action! Make your mind up! It is one or the other, not both. The acting was weak from most of the actors involved in this film. Also, why does Yoda look so fake in this one?! I mean, if Yoda is gonna be in CGI, at least make him look real! If not, try and make him just like in the originals. I mean, that is the main weakness the prequels have: they are overloaded with CGI effects. I mean, yeah I know that times have changed as have effects but at the end of the day, it is a prequel to a very successful franchise and there did need to be some originality. I think the only originality that Attack Of The Clones had in comparison to Episode IV, V and VI is the music!


Attack Of The Clones is set 10 years after The Phantom Menace where Anakin is a grown man now not a little kid but still has his strong crush on Padmé. Padmé is now a senator in the Republic and her life is at risk due to assassination attempts by the Trade Federation so the Jedi Council assign Anakin Skywalker to protect her on her home planet of Naboo and there they slowly fall in love and share a forbidden romance. Obi-Wan, on the other hand, is tracking down a bounty hunter who attempted to assassinate Senator Amidala which leads him to the Mars-like planet of Geonosis and the Clone War begins.


I have always been a strong admirer of Ewan McGregor and he is one of the best living actors but his performance as Obi-Wan Kenobi in this one was mediocre. I mean, he wasn't involved THAT much in The Phantom Menace but he was a bit more this time but his performance wasn't really any better. I think perhaps because of the cheesy script made his performance even worse. Hayden Christensen was simply the wrong actor to have been chosen to play Anakin Skywalker in the second prequel! I could probably give George Lucas a list of about 30 actors who could have played Anakin better and made him more realistic. I think James Franco would have been the best option because he would have made Anakin an angry individual, a hero and a man with feelings. Hayden just made him like a really empty character and I can't believe that is Darth Vader but younger! Natalie Portman was surprisingly bad as Padmé. I mean, I could hardly feel any emotion for Padmé at all; what with the assassination attempts or the love she has for Anakin.


Seriously, George Lucas, what were you trying to achieve with Attack Of The Clones? I mean, yeah you want Anakin's turn to the dark side to be tragic, not soppy romance! Maybe go a bit mad after a close one died (like his mother or a Jedi colleague or something) and that would have made it even more interesting. The screenplay was pretty damn cheesy most of the time especially in the Anakin and Padmé scene where Anakin was expressing his feelings towards Padmé and how a relationship between them would work but as I said, Star Wars is a series of adventure and action, not romance! I mean, fair enough with Revenge Of The Sith because it all comes down to that film seeing as that was part of the story. There were just conversations, no romance but did feature heartbreak which is how Obi-Wan and Yoda felt about Anakin's betrayal and the fact that the Jedi were going extinct except those two. George Lucas shouldn't have been director, should have gone to someone else who would be awesome at directing it (Episode V and Episode VI weren't directed by George Lucas) and should just stick to writing but not make them cheesy!


Overall, Star Wars: Episode II – Attack Of The Clones is a disappointing prequel to the original Star Wars trilogy that is just entertainment for the action and effects but crap regarding story, acting, directing and writing so it makes it about average. Thank God that Revenge Of The Sith showed us what George Lucas really is capable of doing. Nothing major happened in Attack Of The Clones that affects the originals when we needed it to build up to Episode III aka the climax film but was just an entertainment Star Wars film. So it is neither good nor bad.