you might think George Lucas would revisit the script for Attack of the Clones to ensure that the same mistakes wouldn't be made again. But really, who can honestly say that nearly a billion dollars in ticket sales wouldn't enthuse them to charge forwards, full steam ahead?Attack of the Clones is a fairly dire film in all aspects. All the mainstays of the Star Wars
franchise are included solely to satiate the appetite of the general fan but few of these aspects work within the structure or runtime of a two and a half hour movie. To say that Attack of the Clones is the worst Star Wars film is an understatement; the only way you can do this trainwreck of a movie justice is to simply accept that it is a bad movie.Set approximately a decade after the conclusion of The Phantom Menace, Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman) is now a young woman and concluded her term in the royal seat of Naboo. Now an Senator, she finds herself in a state of constant peril, following an assassination attempt which claims the life of a decoy. Due to her close ties with current Senate Chairman Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) the Jedi council agrees to place her under the care of two of their most trusted agents, Obi-Wan-Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and his young padawan Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen), both of whom have a history with Amidala from the events of The Phantom Menace. Following a subsequent attempt on Padmé's life, Anakin is sent to guard her on Naboo whilst Obi-Wan follows a lead which suggests that the Republic or the Jedi Council may have ordered for an army of clones to be manufactured on a secret distant planet called Kamino. As Obi-Wan uncovers a conspiracy regarding this army, Anakin struggles to deal with the guilt of leaving his mother on Tatooine a decade prior, as well as accepting how to deal with his reignited affection for Padmé.
Firstly, it's entirely worth noting that for some reason the entire look of Attack of the Clones seems to have a slightly darkened shadow cast over it. Perhaps it's an attempt to visualise the transgression that Anakin is slowly but steadily encompassing but in reality it just makes the film look dim and ugly. With such grand canvasses as the planets of Coruscant, a utopian looking maze of infinitely tall skyscrapers, Naboo, an organic and archaic seeming garden planet, and Kamino, a planet that appears to be 90% water with sleek structures poking out above the ferocious waves, it's a stunning consideration that dimming the picture throughout the movie was a conscious decision. Despite this grievous flaw, the craftsmanship behind the design and the effects, be they practical or computer generated, still shine through enough to make experiencing these places an entirely worthwhile endeavour.
As far as the plot goes, the film feels dissociative for a good hour or so of the running time with Obi-Wan and Anakin's experiences being entirely separate for the entire second act; whilst Obi-Wan seeks to unfurl the tangled web of lies that students of the darker side of the Force have laid out, Anakin falls deeply in love with Padmé, decides not to get too involved due to his role as a Jedi and then promptly goes on to discard any responsibility he thought he was upholding by committing slaughter en masse once he finds the creatures who have kidnapped his mother back on his home planet. The back and forth between these two parallel plot threads means that the film never really finds an atmosphere or tone that it can stick with and so shuffles repeatedly between emotional-angst and political intrigue without any real sense of correlation. By the beginning of the third act, some strategic planet-placing on Lucas' part throughout the galaxy ensures that these two plots can eventually re-converge quite conveniently, but by this point neither stories matter much any more as the heroes are forced to fight mostly for their lives.
Throughout all this, there is a sub-plot concerning so called Seperatists from the Republic who have become aware of the corruption, but for the first two thirds of the running time they're only ever mentioned in snatches of dialogue, and by the time the leader of the Seperatists, Count Dooku (Christopher Lee) enters the frame, it becomes evident that these Seperatists are clearly not to be trusted. Although Lee plays Dooku with a wonderfully evil smirk, it destroys any notion that the arguments he's making for Seperatism hold any ground whatsoever.
With regards to the cast, there's not much to say about anybody involved...each cast member is completely capable but without any of the light-hearted humour that the original trilogy is often fondly remembered for, like The Phantom Menace, it is difficult to connect to any of the characters portrayed. It's a somewhat bizarre turn of events when you find yourself relating to the droids C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) and R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) over any of the sentient life-forms in the film. Concerning Christensen as Anakin, it's difficult to avoid falling into the popular trap of criticising him right off the bat: his performance does feel fairly stiff and overly focused but if anything this makes a lot of sense when taking into account the character. Anakin was raised as a normal child (despite being a slave) for a good five or six years longer than most Jedi apprentices would be, at which point he was taken from his home and thrust into a life of extreme training, both physically and mentally. If anything it is only natural for him to feel somewhat conflicted in regards to just about any emotion he experiences and I can imagine someone in that situation struggling to emote the way that most people do. It might not be the best performance in the series (and is construed by many to be a particularly bad performance altogether) but personally, I felt the Christensen's performance grounded the character in the reality of his situation.
As a Star Wars fan I can't help but enjoy Attack of the Clones because it has everything that I come to the series for: lightsabers, philosophical meandering and excellent set design. That said, I like Attack of the Clones the minimum amount I could appreciate a Star Wars film. Without lightsabers this is a film I simply wouldn't recommend at all and can only passively point it out as a capable movie to other hardened fans now. If you've decided to marathon the Star Wars series, all 6 films, you need to watch Attack of the Clones, purely for continuity reasons but at no point do you especially need to enjoy it. As far as general viewing goes, you would be better off with any other entry to the series.
2/5
Also posted on Screened.com on 14th March, 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment