Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) Review

 Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) 6.5/10

Hello and welcome to another movie review. Continuing with Star Wars, today I’m going to go over the second Prequel movie, Attack of the Clones. This movie was released on May 16, 2002, with the movie being written and directed by George Lucas. Upon the film’s release, Attack of the Clones received mixed reviews, but overall was better received compared to its predecessor The Phantom Menace.

Out of the prequel movies, I have always found Attack of the Clones to be the weakest film. Idk, growing up I always found the movie to be slow, boring, and pretty cringe at times. Watching the movie now with a new pair of eyes made me realize it’s not the dogshit abomination that I remember it to be. I guess I just wasn’t mature enough to appreciate what the film was trying to do. Although Attack of the Clones doesn’t have as many smaller issues as Phantom Menace, it suffers from one major problem that keeps it from being a genuinely good movie. Let’s begin.

10 years have passed since the events of the first movie. Padme Amadala is no longer the Queen of Naboo, but is now instead serving as a senator in the Galactic Senate. Anakin Skywalker is a Padawan under the tutelage of Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi. Thousands of systems intend to secede from the Galactic Republic, wanting to become Separatists and create their own form of government. With all of these secessions, conflict and chaos is brewing across the galaxy and the Jedi Order is stretched thin. To help accommodate this, the Galactic Senate is putting up a vote for the creation of a Galactic Republic Army. However many senators are against the bill, such as Senator Amadala, as they want to resolve this issue diplomatically without resorting to war. Because of her stance, she is being targeted for assassination and has narrowly escaped several attempts. Padme reluctantly accepts the aid of two Jedi to protect her, Obi-Wan and Anakin. After another assassination attempt, the Jedi Council decides to have Anakin play bodyguard and take Padme back to Naboo for safe keeping while Obi-Wan investigates. While Obi-Wan is following the money, he’ll discover that a Grand Army of the Republic has already been made. In fact, the army was ordered about ten years ago from a deceased Jedi. As Obi-Wan searches for the truth, Anakin will take this opportunity of a lifetime to confess his feelings towards the senator, even though his feelings are forbidden by the Jedi Order.

My number one biggest issue with the movie is Anakin, and it’s not even Hayden Christensen’s fault. I understand that Anakin is an immature, mentally unstable, awkward teenager. I get that. Bro has a lot of trauma and skeletons in the closet that have never been addressed. But why the fuck did they write him like this? He is so fucking cringe in this movie, especially during the first half of the film. Anakin has zero game but somehow pulls Padme, one of the hottest people in the galaxy lmao. He is constantly whining and complaining and making trouble and somehow Padme has feelings for him? Anakin’s dialogue and his tantrums are just horribly written. Again, it’s not Hayden’s fault. In fact, I’d say he does a pretty good job here even with the awful writing. When Anakin isn’t being a brat, Hayden shines very brightly. I just can not see how he pulled Padme with the shit he was saying. George Lucas does not know how to write lovey dialogue and relationships lmao.

The rest of the movie is fine. I love the added world building with all of the politics and whatnot. Unfortunately the movie still fails to fully explain how things work, but at least we have a better idea here compared to Phantom Menace. What’s happening in the Galaxy at this point is similar to the American Civil War. Half of the country is seceding because they do not like how things are working. However, this time around the Separatists are being funded by both bodying systems as well as corporations and banking bodies. And because of this schism, there’s a lot of conflict and turmoil going on, and the Republic doesn’t have an active military force to deal with all of it, so they rely on the Jedi Order to uphold peace. I really do wish we would get a proper map of the Galaxy so that we can see how things are playing out exactly.

As for Obi-Wan’s side of the story, things are pretty interesting here. The incomplete Jedi Archives, discovering a lost planet that’s known for their cloning tech, and coming to learn that the basis of the newly discovered Clone Army comes from a bounty hunter named Jango Fett (and if you remember from the original trilogy, Fett is the same name as Boba Fett, the one who captured Han Solo). I love the added world building with this detail as it sets up Boba for later on, even though Boba only has so much screen time in the original trilogy. It’s an interesting way to bring in the bounty hunter side of Star Wars into the prequels. As for Obi-Wan’s investigation, it was fine, but I wouldn’t have minded a bit more development to his old friend Dex. Bro comes out of nowhere, tells Kenobi where to look, and we never see or hear of him again. (Quick shout out to his little diner. Screams 1950’s lol, even with the robot waitress).

The rest of the movie flows pretty well. Anakin having his nightmares about his mom, him and Padme leaving Naboo to find her, and of course Anakin slaughtering that entire tribe. Such a dark moment in the entire franchise. I love the stuff on Kamino, Obi-Wan chasing Jango Fett to Geonosis, the droid factory scene, and one of my favorite scenes: Count Dooku talking to Obi-Wan. Dooku only has so much screen time but he left such an impression (partially because of Christopher Lee). He flat out tells Kenobi “the Senate is under the direct control of the Dark Lord. You are literally playing into his hands. Join me and we can fight against him and make the galaxy a better place.” Dooku even brings up Qui-Gon’s death and how he is hurt by his passing. Dooku seems like he genuinely wants the galaxy to be better. But instead, Kenobi only sees a Sith in front of him and completely disregards what he says. When Kenobi reports this to Yoda later on, Yoda flat out says “since he’s a Sith, he’s lying and can not be trusted. However, we should keep an eye on the Chancellor. Just in case.” LISTEN TO DOOKU! Mace Windu even said earlier in the movie that they are losing their connection to look into the Force because of just how clouded it is. I get that the Jedi Council is both so full of themselves that they don’t recognize their own farts and they are blinded by the Dark Side overshadowing everything, but you’d think one of them would take a step back and look at things from a bigger picture, you know something they TELL THEIR PUPILS TO DO WITH THEIR TRAINING! “Be mindful of the living Force and use it to guide your actions.” or something like that. No wonder why the Jedi is almost non-existent in the original trilogy lmao.

Another one of my favorite scenes is right before Anakin and Padme are shuttled into the gladiator arena, and this is such an excellent performance from Natalie Portman. Padme confesses her feelings to Anakin, saying she’s loved him since the very beginning. However, due to her duties as a government official and Anakin being a Jedi, she compartmentalized her feelings to not get in the way of their duties. But she figured since they are about to die, she told him everything and it’s honestly such a touching moment. I wanted to see more of that earlier in the movie instead of that cringe bullshit like “I don’t like sand.” The animal stuff was cool I guess, but these creatures looked like they were only here to sell toys lmao. The rest of the Geonosis stuff is really cool and honestly the highlight of the film. All of the Jedi showing up, showing the new Super Battle Droid, we finally get to see the Clones in action, a large-scale battle, and a final fight with Dooku.

Dooku vs everyone is honestly such a banger of a fight, and I hate how underrated it is. It shows Dooku’s confidence, Anakin’s impatience (and incredible swordsmanship), Obi-Wan’s defensive style, and YODA IN ACTION! Think about it. At this point in time, since Yoda first made his appearance in 1980, he has not once been in a fight. Well, 22 years later, we see the little green gremlin throw hands with MOTHERFUCKING CHRISTOPHER LEE! God if you told anyone this after Empire or even after RotJ, they would just look at you weird. Yoda and Dooku’s knowledge of the Force is incredible, but that lightsaber fight made this whole movie. I love how Yoda uses his size to his advantage, as he’s hopping all around Dooku like a damn frog. Unfortunately, Dooku pussies out and runs away (understandable as he has shit to do lol), but still. God the last 20 minutes of the movie really saves it.

As for production, the movie looks great. I love the look of all of the planets and locales that the movie goes to. I’ve always wanted to see more of Coruscant on the ground level and we got a slice of that, which was nice. I love how orange and red Geonosis is and Naboo will always look great. We also got to see the Lars homestead on Tatooine (where Luke grew up) and it was nice to see a younger Owen and Beru. Just like Phantom Menace, there aren’t too many great camera shots, but there are some memorable moments. Music is still good, but probably the weakest soundtrack John Williams made for Star Wars. The only really notable tracks are Jango Chase and Across The Stars. The way the movie reused Duel of Fates for when Anakin was searching for his mother really bothered me. It’s a great song, but I kind of want that track to be reserved for The Duel of Fates.

Despite the atrocious writing at times, the acting was pretty solid. THE best performance probably goes to Natalie Portman (Padme). Again that scene where she confesses to Anakin right before being rolled out to the arena was so fucking good. Hayden Christensen got so much fucking hate for his performance as Anakin, but again, that was not his fault. He gave us a whiny, immature teenager full of emotional angst. His character just wasn’t written all that well. Also shout out to Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan), Temuera Morrison (Jango), Samuel L Jackson (Mace Windu), Frank Oz (Yoda), Ian McDiarmid (Chancellor Palpatine), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Kenny Baker (R2-D2), and Christopher Lee (Count Dooku).

Overall, Attack of the Clones gets too much hate. Number one biggest issue is Anakin, but other than that, the movie is fine. Personally, this is still my least favorite of the prequel trilogy, but I’m glad I gave it a proper chance to tell its story, without the rose tinted glasses. I will be going over Revenge of the Sith pretty soon to round out the prequels, but first I have a small detour to attend to. Until my next review, stay frosty.

Thanks for reading.

This is Zorgak, signing off.