There is unrest in the Galactic Senate. Several thousand solar systems have declared their intentions to leave the Republic. The separatist movement, under the leadership of the mysterious Count Dooku, has made it difficult for the limited number of Jedi Knights to maintain peace and order in the galaxy. Senator Amidala, the former Queen of Naboo, is returning to the Galactic Senate to vote on the critical issue of creating an ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC to assist the overwhelmed Jedi… |
So begins Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones which we went to see it last Sunday. I had high hopes for it as I’d heard it had echoes of The Empire Strikes Back (my favourite Star Wars film). Sadly it didn’t live up to my expectations although overall I was fairly impressed.
The film was basically more of the same i.e. it picked up where The Phantom Menace left off (no surprise there) albeit 10 years or so later. The film had a stronger emotive narrative than its predecessor but fewer surprises (let’s face it, we all know how it turns out). There was more politics, some love interest and buckets of ‘special’ effects. When I say ‘special’ what I really mean is lots of CGI ships, landscapes and aliens. Something which is rather par for the course in sci-fi films these days. And therein lies one of my criticisms of the film (apart for the fact it was too long and fairly humourless). The CGI space ships were all incredibly shiny and had lots of silvery reflections. Quite out of keeping to the normal Star Wars universe. Surely one of the appealing things about Star Wars is that everything is dusty and dirty and slightly beaten up. I think ‘realistic’ is the word I’m trying to use here - but it’s hard to talk about realism when you’re talking about a fantasy film.
Would I recommend you go and see it? Yes. But only if you like the other films in the series. It will make no new converts I fear. The net copies I've seen are fairly poor so I'd wait to rent or buy the video or tape when it comes out.
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