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Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones Movie Review

Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones is a 2002 space opera film directed by George Lucas and starring Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman. It is the worst entry in the entire series.

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“I don’t like sand.

It’s coarse and rough and irritating

and it gets everywhere“

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Yes, I really did not like this one. ‘The Phantom Menace’ has a couple of truly great scenes, but this one doesn’t even have those. It is certainly less insufferable and less childish with a thankfully reduced screen time for Jar Jar, but the other introduced elements are worse than its predecessor’s aspects quite a lot.

I am talking about the overwhelming action and the romance. The action is fun in the lightsaber duel and some other scenes, but for the most part it was dull as it is basically a war film with the clones fighting the Jedi. Those scenes bored me and the film is definitely overlong and dragging quite a bit.

But oh boy does the romance suck and carry this entire film down significantly. This has to be the worst romance ever put on film. The relationship between Padme and Anakin is boring and uninteresting. The two actors lack chemistry and their performances are terrible. Their lines of dialogue are awful and all of their scenes are basically giant detours with no purpose whatsoever other than to make you laugh how ridiculous they are.

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Attack of the Clones is an honorable, but failed experiment. And what I mean by that is that the film tries to give us Anakin’s troubles with his temperament and we are meant to witness his shift to the dark side. It is thematically an interesting film and it does that shift really subtly and in an anti-cartoony manner. However, because the dialogue is so horrible across the board and the execution is so bad, those scenes that should have been dramatic and emotional are the worst ones here which is just unfortunate.

Natalie Portman gave one of her worst performances here. She is usually a very good actress, but here she is mediocre. But Hayden Christensen is just awful and he gave such a horrible, undeniably atrocious performance in an essential role that he single-handedly destroyed this entire film. I do think that he was cast in this role for looks alone as he has no acting talent whatsoever.

Obi-Wan Kenobi should have been used more here and Mace Windu is solid, but somewhat forgettable. The robots are quite amusing in some scenes, but mostly unnecessary. Palpatine and Count Dooku are excellent villains and again they should have been used in more scenes. Yoda is also reliably great. The fight between Yoda and Dooku remains the only truly good scene in this film as it is a great fight and easily the highlight of this otherwise unexciting film.

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Attack of the Clones has reliably terrific special effects and also some of the scenes featured excellent imagery and planet scenery. The score and the sound effects are both pretty good too. This script I think was good in its initial stages and it had potential as certainly its intentions were excellent, but the execution is so bad that it rendered the entire affair dead in tracks. The dialogue is some of the worst that I have ever heard in a film. That’s why it’s the worst film in the entire franchise.

Attack of the Clones looks great, the duel between Yoda and Count Dooku is excellent and the film had very good intentions, but the execution is so bad that it rendered the entire film mediocre. Rarely have I heard worse dialogue than this one as many lines spoken here are ridiculous and even hilarious. The action scenes are overwhelming, the film is too long and the romance between Padme and Anakin is so bland and all their scenes together are terrible. Hayden Christensen is simply an atrocious actor and he single-handedly destroyed this entire film. It is undoubtedly the worst entry in the entire franchise.