 | STAR
WARS: EPISODE II - ATTACK OF THE CLONES (May 2002)
Director: George Lucas.
Writers: George Lucas, Jonathan Hale.
Starring:
Ewan MacGregor,
Natalie Portman, Christopher Lee, Hayden Christensen, Samuel L. Jackson, Frank
Oz, Temuera Morrison, Jack Thompson.
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Obi-Poff
Kenobi
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CGI
= Cast Grossly Inessential.
by
Jon Dunmore © July 2002.
George
Lucas doesn't make book on The Beatles' Can't Buy Me Love. Flagrantly disregarding
the word "budget," Lucas feels that by throwing the baby, the bathwater,
the soap AND the rubber ducky at audiences, it will buy him the love and respect
he seems so desperately to be craving.
STAR WARS: EPISODE II - ATTACK OF THE CLONES is a cry for help;
a glutted, ostentatious syrup of coagulative computer pixelation, which detracts
from the reason why those effects are there in the first place - to lend credence
to the human story which they end up overshadowing. It is obvious that
no veteran director ever sat down with George as a young filmmaker - no John Huston
or Milos Forman - and advised the neophyte, "Y'know, George: Less Is More."
Pile upon redundant pile of superfluous graphic imagery stuns you into almost
not laughing at the hamhanded attempts at characterization and kindergarten dialog.
Nonetheless, like EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, this film will eventually be logged as "better
than the first" - but still only slightly less excruciating than passing
a kidney stone.
That being said, on some levels, CLONES is a great movie
- for reasons that Lucas's target demographic of superfreaks and cybergeeks probably
couldn't even fathom: the actual storyline rivals that of Frank Herbert's classic DUNE series (political intrigue set against a science fiction cyclorama),
yet the manner in which the tale is imparted is sorely ingenuous. The imagineering
of the wondrous visuals IS genius, as are the effects mavens who continue to pioneer
their art form. But effects do not a movie make - this is not a catalog for a
suite of outboard tools, it is a story told in moving pictures.
Stephen
King has opined many times that "It is the tale, not he who tells it,"
but I have never agreed with him on this point. Consider: you can be told the
same joke by two different people and while one of them loses the plot, forgets
the punchline and makes you wish you had not made eye contact with them on the
way to the lunchroom, the other will make you wonder why he is not plying his
trade as a comedian, in the stead of despicable hacks like the Pauly Shores and
Adam Sandlers of this talentless town. Ultimately, "it is NOT the tale, BUT
he who tells it." Lucas can think up The Tale, but he should leave it to
his good buddy Spielberg to TELL it. It has become passé to criticize Lucas's
recent STAR WARS efforts, a major reason being that he has the clout to
secure the greatest actors in the world, then abjectly ignores their interplay
in the grandiose fictional worlds he has forged for them. One could say that this
movie's gaping flaw was its technical perfection - whilst all humanity
suffered around that perfection...
Watching Hayden Christensen (the nascent
Darth Vader) interact with Natalie Portman (as Padme) or Ewan MacGregor (reprising his Obi-Wan) makes your skin crawl with embarrassment.
This is not even phone-in material - did Lucas do any second takes at all?! Every
line between Darth Anakin and Padme Portman reeks of Lucas (and whoever else is
responsible for the reprehensible script) rifling through teen magazine advice
columns and copying the conversations verbatim. And get those two a kissing coach,
George - their onscreen lip-smudges exuded all the reticent passion of a Michael
Jackson public-woman-kiss. Portman's inherent sexual heat (played upon gratuitously
in her primo role as 12-year-old Mathilda in LEON, 1994) is now, at an age when it should be searing celluloid, nonexistent amidst
the clutter of machinery and glutted blue-screen babble. Even those dumb, slutty
outfits (ostensibly ex-queenery attire) do nothing to propel her plasticism into
three-dimensionality.
Dramatis
Personae:
Christopher
Lee
suddenly appears in the movie, as the raging Count Doofus, having lost his
way from THE LORD OF THE RINGS sound stage and figuring that no one would realize he
was playing the same role. Master of the Dracule race, still undead, of all the
titles he could have been bequeathed by Lucas, amusing he ended
up yet again as a "Count."
Temuera Morrison, largely
unknown in these United States (except for his cataclysmic role in the New Zealand
cult classic ONCE WERE WARRIORS), was another surprise, as the clone-model
bounty hunter Jango Fett, whose freight-train stature lent just that subtle hint
of sarcasm to his best line, "I'm just a simple man, trying to make his way
in the universe."
Anthony Daniels returns, clad once again
as golden droid C-3PO. Unfortunately, in this movie, he only took over where Jar-Jar
Boolum-Head left off in the last one. Lucas seems intent on inserting a staple
lowbrow element in this series to keep the 3 Stooges fans wetting 'em in the aisles.
Whereas Daniels's fey English Butler/Dr. Smith routine only got better in the first
three real STAR WARS movies as he became more accustomed to the character, we are now subjected to
a fusillade of desperate, non-funny schtick from Daniels, his vapid repartee
obviously culled from out-takes of MARY-KATE & ASHLEY and THE HOGAN FAMILY. Describing his role as "dull and clichéd" does it
justice! All that was gold definitely did not glitter this time 'round.
And speaking of that computer-graphic twit, JarHead, his role has mercifully
been minimized in this film, though he is involved in one of the film's pivotal
plot events: having been bequeathed ad hoc senatorial power, he casts his
vote in favor of the Evil Guys (don't ask me to outline the plot - I wasn't really
paying attention at that point), thereby making the winter last four more months
when he doesn't see his shadow... though it's hard to buy the plot contrivance
that placed him in that senatorial position in the first place. Who in their right
mind would hand over senatorial duties to a marmoset with the reasoning capacity
of Curly Joe Besser? Anyway, the less said about that thing, the better. My ears
are hurting just thinking about trying to decipher what that thing keeps
saying, "Me so hooorny! Me love you long time! Me love you... too much!"
Real
actors who seemed out of place in this fantasy realm:
Samuel L. Jackson,
as Yoda's sidekick/bitch, Shaft Windu, delivering his lines like he was just about
to chow down on a Big Kahuna Burger;
Jimmy Smits, as the Persian-Rug-wearing
senator/porn-star, Trey Orgazmo, just longing for a role where he could be as
ethnic as he wants to be;
Jack Thompson, halfheartedly
reading his sides, about his "wife being kidnapped or something...";
Hayden Christensen, whose acting talents were constantly lauded in
all the press junkets, yet who brought a wooden-ness to his role that Christopher
Reeve could only dream of bringing to the SUPERMAN
movies;
Natalie Portman, who was out-acted by her dresses;
Ian McDiarmid, as Emperor Palpatine, wearing too much makeup even
for the drag-queen that he was portraying. Fortunately, he took those Vincent
Price lessons by EPISODE VI and showed us how to elevate insouciance to a whole
'nother level with his delivery of the line, "And now, young Skywalker...
you will die...";
one of the Tusken Raiders, who was leaning
up against a tent as if he was "acting like a Tusken Raider leaning up against
a tent"; and finally,
Liam Neeson, whose presence in this
episode was as powerful as his presence in the last one...
Interminable
Scenes, which could have been pared:
Chasing
Padme's would-be assassin through crowded flying traffic: Trying
to secure a deal with Universal Studios for a tie-in rollercoaster ride, are we,
George?
Jango Fett battling Obi-Wan Kenobi: Knowing that Obi is
not going to die until EPISODE IV (and even then, Luke can't get the stank
of Obi's Force out of his head, as he crops up contractually during X-Wing
battles, Ewok celebrations and comic-book tie-ins), is there really any tension
in this scene?
Any scene where Anakin and Padme are alone: What
could I have possibly done in my wretched life to deserve this?
The
arena lightsabre battle between the Compleat Jedi Book Club and Count Doofus's
misprogrammed robots: How can I be so sure they're misprogrammed? Well, when
a human aims a blaster, their human imperfections don't allow them to target a
point perfectly every time; but if a robot is programmed to fire a blaster at
a target, it isn't thinking about whether it left the oven on - without any mental
distractions, it is targeting its objective with pure mathematics and (possibly)
sonar or radar alignment. How then could this army of robots, this veritable Phil
Spector Wall Of Blasters POSSIBLY fire so many shots into the ground and into
the surrounding edifices when ALL their shots should be finding their marks or,
at the very least, deflected by Jedi lightsabres? And Padme does not even have
a defense weapon! - she only has a blaster, firing arbitrarily into the surrounding
blue-screen, hoping that no one will notice the conceptual flaw due to her bare
midriff. If I was Count Dookie, I'd be getting my money back on these pieces of
trash - typical Fry's Electronics garbage.
Any scene with Jarjar Binks in it: Don't
get me started.
Notwithstanding
Lucas's ineptitude, three unstoppable real-life actors rose above the morass of
CGI fartwork: Christopher Lee (playing a role he has commandeered since time immemorial);
Ewan MacGregor (holding his own in the dwarfing shadow of Sir Alec Guinness, whose
young counterpart he plays), and Yoda (who was directed by Clint Eastwood). A
long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK) a master of puppets (Frank Oz) created and voiced Yoda, in the role of comic
relief and crippled, enigmatic, green sidekick - but an even longer time ago (this EPISODE - ATTACK OF THE CLONES), a Jedi UberMeister proved he ain't no Muppet,
throwing down against the mighty Count Doobie; as lightsabres clash and burn
between Count Vlad and the High Plains Jedi, it is obvious that the only way out
for Christopher Lee is to cheat and then run like a girly... More sequels on the
way...
Or should I say "PREquels"? The trend of the sequel
has arguably been overrun by the last few years' trend of prequels. As Lucas wrapped
production on the first of his Star babies (PHANTOM MENACE), the prequel
to the Superman saga, SMALLVILLE, was already on the small screen; we
have seen the YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES, the YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES MYSTERIES, MUPPET BABIES, BEFORE THEY WERE ROCK STARS, MOVIE STARS' HIGH SCHOOL YEARBOOKS; we have even been subjected to THE THORN BIRDS: THE MISSING YEARS (did anyone even know or care?)... Now here comes
the prequel-to-the-sequel of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS - RED DRAGON, which is
itself a remake (?!?!) of MANHUNTER...
Like Eddie van Halen before
him (who did not invent fingertap, but brought it to the masses), Lucas did not
invent the "prequel", but he will be the person at whose feet
will ultimately be laid the blame for the rash of impostors and wannabes that keep us rolling our eyes.
As Yoda's last words in this film portend, "The attack
of the clones... has begun!..."
END
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STAR
WARS: EPISODE II - ATTACK OF THE CLONES (May 2002)
Director: George Lucas.
Writers: George Lucas, Jonathan Hale.
Starring: Ewan MacGregor,
Natalie Portman, Christopher Lee, Hayden Christensen, Samuel L. Jackson, Frank
Oz, Temuera Morrison, Jack Thompson.
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