The International House of Mojo

Gabez once watched Episode II on a loop for three days. He then mistook an old man to be Yoda and ended up murdering his duck.

And so we move onto the next film in the series, Attack of the Clones. Replace Jake “bouncy” Lloyd with Hayden “glaring” Christensen, a good title with a crap title, Duel of the Fates with Across the Stars and a plot about trade embargos with a story about forbidden love. Do the changes make all the difference? Well yes, they make a huge difference is the answer to that. This is Lucas in more familiar territory, with the promise of a big war and cheeky teases of the original trilogy - such us a hologram of the Death Star - that will make any self-respecting Star Wars fan guffaw in excitement.

HOW EMBARRASSING

The films opens unspectacularly with Anakin and Obi-Wan assigned to protect Padme Armadillo (or whatever her name is) and with the film’s first few scenes being filled with bad dialogue and script editing you might think that you’re in for another Phantom Menace. Not so, however - tense character conflict between master and apprentice leads to some great moments later on, with Anakin clearly showing a hot-head and frustration for still being a mere Padawan. Have these exchanges during an epic chase-sequence and you’ve already got a classic Star Wars scene. It’s exciting, funny and well-paced and doesn’t bother with silly things like realism or seriousness. It’s an example of what Star Wars does best: character based conflict that is a microcosm for what’s happening on the screen, something that Phantom Menace sorely lacked. As Obi-wan says “You completely lost the assassin” and Anakin jumps out of the pod a mile high in the air, you can certainly smell the testosterone.

The story kicks along at a good pace from here on in, and doesn’t drag so much in the middle as Phantom Menace did thanks to Obi-Wan being separated from Anakin and given a chance to do his thang with Jango Fett. That said, the twin-plot following Anakin and Padme is a little too lovey-dovey in areas, and involves much rolling around in the grass laughing, which does begin to grate after a while.

Things really pick up towards the end, though, culminating in the duel between Yoda and Count Duck (or whatever his name is) which is so awesome that you feel like you’re going to explode into a million globules of excitement and delight. It’s moments like “Much to learn you have” that make Attack of the Clones such a fun film to watch, with Yoda becoming a green light-sabre-wielding blur being exactly what you want to see in a prequel (and the fact that he can suddenly go from slow old guy to super fast killing machine doesn’t matter). In the cinema the scene was even better than it is on DVD; some guy shouted “Yoda!!“ when we saw his shadow appear, and the audience cheered every time he repelled Saruman’s attacks (that’ll teach him for fighting Gandalf).

A SLOW LEARNER

As always, the soundtrack is very good, though as the film is set between two major eras - the Old Republic and the Clone Wars/birth of the Galactic Empire - there isn’t much for the music to hold onto, save for the love story which, as I’ve already said, is a bit wishy-washy. We’re given the obligatory aural glimpses of themes from the original trilogy - such as a chord or two of Yoda when he uses the force to hold a large fuel silo in the air - but these are too subtle to be memorable and serve only to emphasise musical moments later on in the original trilogy. That’s no bad thing, though it does make Attack of the Clones slightly inferior sound-wise to the later films even though this is through no fault of its own.

The special effects are also worthy of praise, and feel a lot less overdone than they did in Phantom Menace. This is largely because the plot is much better, but also the technology has progressed since ‘99 and the result is that the CGI looks a lot more realistic and fits in better with the rest of the film. In Phantom Menace characters often looked like they were walking through paintings - very beautiful paintings, but paintings nevertheless - whilst this happens much less in Attack of the Clones and much much less in Revenge of the Sith.

There’s also more opportunity to splash on a visual feast with more interesting weather conditions reflecting Anakin’s state of mind; in Phantom Menace the scenes were mostly in the bright sunlight of innocence, whilst in Attack of the Clones we have the fog of uncertainty at the start of the movie (which looks more interesting than it sounds), then the darkness of temptation with a couple of night scenes and finally the sun-sets of death, representing the beginning of the end for Anakin. It’s no coincidence that he zooms off in a pod with the sun setting behind him and emerges after killing sand people in the dead of night, and it’s a good example of how the special effects heighten the impact of the film rather than distract from its impact as they sometimes did in Phantom Menace.

AGGRESSIVE NEGOTIATION

Unfortunately it’s not all love and kisses with Attack of the Clones, and even though Jar-Jar Binks has had his part in the story severely reduced, there are still annoyances to be had. Padme screaming “I love you Anny!” screeching like the mating call of a barnyard owl will have you grating your teeth in hatred, and it’s lines like that which will make your hand hover in hesitation when you reach for the DVD for future viewings. When you look back at the film it will be with fond memories, however, albeit fond memories of only small segments of the film.

The bits in between those segments aren’t that bad, though, and the overal taste in one’s mouth is not entirely bitter. If the Phantom Menace is sheer masturbation, then Attack of the Clones is a love-filled fling with an old flame; they feel reassuringly familiar and give you some great moments, yet you know all their character faults and there is a dim voice in your head that tells you that you’ll regret this in the morning. For the moment, though, everything is fine and you can just enjoy the ride, though if you’re honest you’re just with them out of curiosity and to see how it all ends up.

2/5 - better than wanking.