Film Review - Attack Of The Clones * The first film of this Star Wars trilogy was so bad that I have been in no ruch at all to see this econd part, and was it worth the wait ? No, if anything this film sucks harder than the first one. The first, and most major, problem with this film is the two leading actors, Ewan McGregor seems to have forgotten everything he ever learned about his profession, whilst Hayden Christianson obviously never learned anything in the first place. To call Christiansons acting wooden would be to insult forests everywhere. Other crimes against acting include Natalie Portman's portrayal of Padme and Samuel L Jackson waiting for his paycheck. Only when Christopher Lee turns up do we see any real talent, it's a poor do when you want the evil guys to win just because they're better acted. Another, glaring, problem is the quite dreadful script and the way characters interact. Watch the sequence where Obi-Wan first visits the cloners, see how everyone talks without listening to what the other characters are saying, awful. Did Count Dukoo have a brain spasm and forget his huge clone army ? Why don't the cloners notice that Obi-Wan knows bugger all about the clones, therefore the army probably isn't his ? Why wasn't this better edited ? The main battle, and here comes my biggest whinge as this is what the film has been leading up to, as all Sat Wars movies do. The main battle, although nicely choreographed and well animated (which is not true of creatures in other parts of the film), suffers from the same problem as the battle at the end of The Phantom Menace. In a battle between robots and flobberty aliens (with Jamaican boys on speed accents), nobody cares who wins, therefore, in a battle between robots and clones (who might as well be robots), well....................... Where has George Lucas gone so wrong ? In The Empire Strikes Back we were treated to a great battle, you could see the ebb and flow of the action and follow the main character through the fighting. Look at some great battle sequences in cinema that focus a) on the characters b)on the bigger picture In the first category you could have Saving Private Ryan and Enemy At The Gates, you don't know how either of these battles are turning but you are intimately involved with the leading characters and their struggle to stay alive. In other battles on film, Spartacus, Lawrence of Arabia, you can clearly see the pattern of the battle and the overall flow of the action. A few films manage both, LOTR:ROTK, Zulu. What does Mr Lucas manage then in this climactic fight, more special effects than you can wave a stick at, he ably translates the confusion of war into the fog of cinema, bang, bang, whoosh, kaboom, and then........... "We've won sir, they're retreating" Christopher Lee makes his escape (wahey for the bad guys), but is waylaid by Yoda, Yoda the fighting scrotum, and by the time you have wiped tears pf mirth from your eyes, it's thankfully all over. When part 3 rolls around, lets hope the bad guys win, in fact, lets hope they win, capture the jedi and then insert burning bamboo splinters under their fingernails, or tentacles.