The only reason this "film" even ranks a 3 is because of Natalie Portman's mid-rift. Seriously though "Attack of the Clones" ranks among the Star Wars holiday special and those awful Ewoks TV movies for being black eyes on an otherwise great group of films. Of course I'm referring specifically to the original trilogy.
When I first saw 'The Phantom Menace' in 1999, I wanted to like it because I grew up and obsessed over the original films. I came away going... "well, at least it can't get any worse, right?" Boy, was I wrong.
"Attack of the Clones" makes "the Phantom Menace" look like freaking Shakespeare, especially the vomit-inducing courtship scenes between Padme and Mannequin Skywalker, the scene with Obi-Wan in the diner and pretty much the whole arena battle with 3P0 chasing his own head. Hayden Christensen managed to cock up the most badass villain in film history, though George Lucas is as much to blame. You'd think this was his first attempt at writing.... well, anything. At that he was a 14. And a little slow.
They even managed to make one of the coolest characters in the whole Universe less interesting by making Boba Fett a clone. Well, goodbye awesome back story that authors had spent time crafting for you in the novels...
Is the entire movie horrible? Almost. Obi-Wan being pursued through an asteroid field by 'clone' Boba and his daddy is kind of neat, and.... that's about it. Yoda fighting Dooku is utterly laughable because it goes against his very character. He wouldn't fight and doesn't even carry a lightsaber, but hey we have some time to fill and an extra $4M in the CGI budget to blow, so let's do that.
Of course there are plenty of people who say the old films were just as flawed and that we "old timers" are blinded by nostalgia. They are entitled to their opinions even though they are wrong.
Do yourself a favour. If you ever get the urge to watch this film, stop what you are doing, check that you've taken your meds and watch one of the originals instead.
When I first saw 'The Phantom Menace' in 1999, I wanted to like it because I grew up and obsessed over the original films. I came away going... "well, at least it can't get any worse, right?" Boy, was I wrong.
"Attack of the Clones" makes "the Phantom Menace" look like freaking Shakespeare, especially the vomit-inducing courtship scenes between Padme and Mannequin Skywalker, the scene with Obi-Wan in the diner and pretty much the whole arena battle with 3P0 chasing his own head. Hayden Christensen managed to cock up the most badass villain in film history, though George Lucas is as much to blame. You'd think this was his first attempt at writing.... well, anything. At that he was a 14. And a little slow.
They even managed to make one of the coolest characters in the whole Universe less interesting by making Boba Fett a clone. Well, goodbye awesome back story that authors had spent time crafting for you in the novels...
Is the entire movie horrible? Almost. Obi-Wan being pursued through an asteroid field by 'clone' Boba and his daddy is kind of neat, and.... that's about it. Yoda fighting Dooku is utterly laughable because it goes against his very character. He wouldn't fight and doesn't even carry a lightsaber, but hey we have some time to fill and an extra $4M in the CGI budget to blow, so let's do that.
Of course there are plenty of people who say the old films were just as flawed and that we "old timers" are blinded by nostalgia. They are entitled to their opinions even though they are wrong.
Do yourself a favour. If you ever get the urge to watch this film, stop what you are doing, check that you've taken your meds and watch one of the originals instead.