2 stars (out of four)
On the surface, Attack of the Clones seems to offer everything we have come to expect
from a Star Wars film –
lightsabers, blasters, a woman with her hair in a bun. As a standalone film, however,
it’s a mess. Strip away the familiar settings, characters and John Williams
score and what we have is an overlong political thriller, all exposition and no
payoff.
The film begins on Coruscant with a failed attempt to
assassinate Amidala (Natalie Portman), who has been elected Senator in the ten
years between this film and the last. She has returned to the capitol planet to
vote on the creation of an army for the Republic, a military force that would
be used to quell the growing separatist party and… already the film has lost
us. George Lucas has responded to criticism regarding Episode I’s confusing politics by writing an entire film about
them.
But let’s set all that aside for now. What is important is
that Amidala is in danger and two old friends are assigned to protect her –
Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and the all grown up Anakin Skywalker (Hayden
Christensen). Following a second attempt on the senator’s life, Anakin becomes
her personal bodyguard while Obi-Wan follows up on a clue left by the assassin.
His investigation leads him to the rainy planet Kamino where
he learns that a clone army is already being built for the Republic. Who
ordered this secret army and when? Perhaps answers will be found on the drab,
desert world of Geonosis where Count Dooku (Christopher Lee), leader of the
separatist movement, hides.
Somewhere in here is the potential for a good detective
story but Attack of the Clones is all
mystery and no intrigue. We’re always a few steps behind the film, grappling to
understand political motives when we should be absorbed in the action. This is
what happens when the motives of characters take a backseat to those of
committees, senates and councils.
The few characters we have to cling onto aren’t much to
speak of. Mrs. Portman is even stiffer than she was in the first. Count Dooku
is a perfunctory villain and Christopher Lee’s performance feels strained,
particularly in comparison to the actor’s portrayal of Saruman in The Lord
of the Rings (which played in theaters the
same year as Attack of the Clones).
Only Ewan McGregor gets away unscathed; his Obi-Wan is charming, personable and
the sole character worth rooting for.
Hayden Christensen, the poor guy, is horribly miscast. His
take on Anakin is all wrong. Anakin’s innate abilities have made him cocky but
rather than playing the character with a sort of self-assured charisma, Mr.
Christensen is unlikable from the get-go. He is whiny and full of himself,
oblivious that he comes off as a real prick. He’s the guy you meet at a party
and immediately know you don’t want to talk to. I suppose at least half the
fault here lies with Mr. Lucas for writing the character this way but, man,
you’d think the protagonist of the whole trilogy would at least make for
tolerable company.
Then there are the would-be romantic scenes, so clumsy and
awkward they threaten to derail the whole film. Mr. Christensen hits on Mrs.
Portman with pitiful pick-up lines, ogling her like a pervy teen. The two have
no chemistry together and their scenes become labored exercises in clichés that
would sound uninspired on a soap opera.
The only moment when Attack of the Clones works is in a scene late in the film when our heroes
are tied to stone pillars and face a gladiatorial public execution. The three
monsters that show up to kill them look as though they have been lifted from
some glorious, forgotten B-grade horror film, and what fun it is to watch
Obi-Wan, Anakin and Amidala thwart them!
Even this is short lived though. The troops march in and the
battle that ensues is disorienting because we don’t know which side to root
for. If Palpatine’s Republic army is a prototype for the Empire from later
episodes, aren’t the separatists the good guys? Count Dooku is said to be
dabbling in the Dark Side. So he’s on the politically correct side, but the
wrong side of the Force? Again, why is George Lucas making everything so
complicated? By the time we get to Yoda’s thoroughly silly fight scene, we’ve
lost all interest in the film.
Much of the action goes unexplained and the plot becomes so
muddled and unclear that multiple viewings are necessary to follow it all. Why,
for example, was Amidala the assassination target and not one of the galaxy’s
thousand-or-so other senators? And who is behind it all? That these important details
should remain obscured from the audience through to the film’s end is absurd.
The special effects are amazing as expected but without a coherent story to
anchor them, they are just window-dressings. Attack of the Clones is a failure of storytelling, though at least it’s a
failure set to a John Williams score.
- Steve Avigliano, 2/17/12
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