Shadows
of the Empire
With Episode II, George Lucas tries to
reclaim his lost glory.
Three years have passed since The Phantom
Menace thrilled some and infuriated others, yet the schism in the
For Star
Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, the hype may have been turned
down with fewer tie-ins slated, but the spin machine has nonetheless gone into
overdrive, with numerous publications such as Time running feature
stories that all say the same thing (echoing Johnny Depp in Ed Wood): Episode
I sucked, but hey, the next one will be better! George Lucas has never yet
admitted that Jar Jar Binks should have had far less screen time, or that his
directing failed to draw up-to-snuff performances from Liam Neeson, Ewan
McGregor and Jake Lloyd (yes, folks, Lloyd can be a good actor -- check out Unhook
the Stars and be amazed), though he did send a letter out to merchandising
tie-in partners promising no children or silly characters in this one. Well,
what he told them was true ...from a certain point of view.
Indeed,
as has been widely publicized in hopes of winning fans back, the infamous Jar
Jar gets scant screen time. What little he does get is actually genuinely
amusing this time around, having nothing to do with him falling down or
sniffing farts, but rather getting treated like the naive dope that he is.
As for
children, there's one who plays a key role, but fans of the first trilogy
probably won't mind, as it's their beloved bounty hunter Boba Fett. Relatively
minor in the grand scheme of this movie, but impressively acted by a young New
Zealander named Daniel Logan, Boba's here to gain motivation for his later evil
deeds, under the tutelage of his father, Jango (named, perhaps, after the
spaghetti western bounty hunter Django?), played by Temuera Morrison. Grown-up
kids long-since disappointed that the first Boba Fett action figure didn't fire
its missile will be happy to know that they at last get to see some
rocket-firing backpack action. And Morrison helps to fill in the villain void
left by Darth Maul's untimely demise, though he's still not as scary a baddie
as he was playing the drunken husband in Once Were Warriors or the
Dog-Boy in The Island of Dr. Moreau.
Episode
II is definitely better than the last one, but so are lots of other
films. It isn't better than Spider-Man, but it at least delivers the
goods, full of the requisite explosions, duels, sci-fi landscapes and action
set-pieces that the average moviegoer expects. It isn't at the same level as
the original trilogy (though it contains plenty of nods to it), but then a
sequel or prequel will almost never be as good as something new and
groundbreaking. For a fifth film in a franchise (seventh if you count the two
Ewok movies that saw theatrical release overseas), it holds up far better than
one might expect. Best of all, it brings back a sense of danger to its
universe, as heads and limbs roll.
The
problems with Episode II, big surprise, have to do with plot and
characterization. Sure, the plot to a point is obliged to fill in the blanks,
but there are more interesting ways to do it, and a whole lot more blanks left
for part three. As in the last film, Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid, still
the saga's best actor) secretly tries to foment civil war in order to gain
emergency war powers that will ultimately result in his becoming emperor (a
cynic might try to make an analogy to current events, but Lucas simply isn't a
clever enough writer to have done so, save for a couple of ham-handed
references to campaign-finance reform).
Meanwhile,
there's a plot to kill Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman) that may or may not have
anything to do with the impending conflict, and Jedi knights Obi-Wan Kenobi
(Ewan McGregor, more alive this time) and his apprentice Anakin Skywalker
(Hayden Christensen, occasionally wooden) are dispatched to get to the bottom
of things. Obi-Wan ends up playing detective with the aid of a mostly useless
droid named R4, while Anakin, in the film's most tedious scenes, runs off to
romp around in meadows with Padmé, where he inevitably falls, first off the
back of a giant mutant pig, then head over heels in love. An obligatory subplot
brings young Skywalker back to Tatooine to pick up C-3PO (Anthony Daniels, who
sounds like he sucked down some helium since last time), and then everyone
reunites for the big final showdown.
About
those blanks left to be filled: There's no reference to Anakin's supposed
virgin birth, or midichlorians, or even the long-promised explanation as to why
Liam Neeson's dead body didn't vanish like other Jedi do at death. Several more
Jedi die without disappearing, however. There is an explanation as to why the
Force-sensitive Jedi can't tell that Palpatine is really the evil Darth
Sidious, and it's a stupid one: "The dark side clouds everything."
Continuity geeks will of course have a field day arguing about the first wave
of Stormtroopers created here, as they all have New Zealand accents and kick
the asses of enemies far more formidable than the gibbering teddy bears who
will one day defeat them. But that's a discussion best left to the Internet.
Co-screenwriter
Jonathan Hales (The Scorpion King) seems to have had a good influence on
Lucas' dialogue, excising some of the more embarrassing lines that appeared in
an early draft of the script widely circulated online, which included Anakin's
use of words like "wacky" and "gonzo," and Yoda's
revelation that one character must be a villain because his name is Darth.
There's still the odd bit of patently obvious exposition ("That's Anakin's
signal. It's coming from Tatooine. What in the blazes is he doing there?"
says Obi-Wan to his non-English-speaking robot) and silliness (podracer
Sebulba, or a lookalike thereof, shows up briefly to say "Jedi
poo-doo!"), but some of it is actually witty, like Obi-Wan's reference to
the Jedi Temple as the old folks' home. C-3PO's comedy bits, as in all the
movies, can be a bit overbearing, but at least he's a familiar nitwit, and
unlikely to actually offend anyone but prissy Britons.
There
is one significant misfire in the script, however, and it undoubtedly has to do
with Lucas allowing his kids to come up with character names, as they did for Episode
I. Dexter Jettster, Kit Fisto, Poggle the Lesser and Elan Sleazebaggano can
duke it out for dumbest name that remains safely unspoken in full, but the
grand champion has to be the name of the film's major adversary: Count Dooku.
Yes, it's pronounced exactly as you'd imagine, and yes, it makes any line of
dialogue sound stupid -- even Ewan McGregor can't make "I'll never join
you, Doo-Koo!" sound properly defiant. Though it helps that Dooku is
played by the dignified Christopher Lee in a standout performance, and gets a
name-change at the last minute, it's hard to be too afraid of a man whose
moniker sounds like something Jar Jar stepped in.
Lee isn't used anywhere near enough -- he's sort
of this movie's Colonel Kurtz, a renegade frequently talked about and
eventually found in a dark corner of space with the tribes that are now under
his command. Once he does appear, he owns the screen, taunting during
lightsaber battles in the manner we wished Darth Maul would have done. And when
another master hits the battle -- call it Crouching Yoda, Hidden Saber
-- you'll laugh, or cheer, or most likely both. Some of the CG still looks bad:
Yoda's ears, for example, properly bounce like the old puppet's, but his
digital facial expressions are often dubious. The film itself follows suit --
sometimes it bounces along, other times it feels forced. Kids and hardcore fans
will love it regardless, and those who don't will nonetheless be talking about
it for the next three years.