After ÒEpisode IÓ, I was certain that any actor selected to portray an older Anakin Skywalker would be better than the one selected for his younger days. I was wrong. I thought Hayden Christensen was awful as the teen version of Darth Vader. I have seen him in other movies like ÒLife is a HouseÓ and ÒThe Virgin SuicidesÓ and never thought much either way, but this performance must have tested and exceeded his acting abilities. To top that off, I thought the performances of Natalie Portman (Senator PadmŽ Amidala) and Samuel L. Jackson (Mace Windu) were also a long, long way from being good.
It was no secret that ÒEpisode IIÓ would involve a romantic tale of Anakin and Amidala. This romance bordered on painful to watch. First, there was the I havenÕt seen you in ten years, but IÕve always loved you crap. Of course, Anakin was a little twit in ÒEpisode IÓ and would not have even like girls yet. From there, it was a snowball of pain that just grew and grew as the story tumbled downhill.
ÒEpisode IIÓ felt like an experiment in computer animation, and this was done at the expense of everything else. Scene after scene was nothing more that a fight that filled the gap between the lame romantic advances of Anakin. Battle, romance, battle, romance, battle, romance - thatÕs the story in a nutshell. Personally, I didnÕt think the animation was anywhere near as good as technology would allow. The other recently released blockbuster, ÒSpidermanÓ, has effects far superior in every way. In fact, IÕm not sure things appeared any more real in ÒEpisode IIÓ than they did in the original three installments of the story.
Some of the previews looked exciting and some looked quite boring, so I wasnÕt quite sure what to expect. None-the-less, what I got was much worse than I imagined. Some movies are much better in the theatre than they are on the small picture of a television. For this one, the hokiness of the ÒEpisode IIÓ effects may be better suited for the small format. On the big screen, there was just no hiding the flaws.
Without the Star Wars mystique, this movie would have came and went and been known as another high budget, low quality sci-fi movie that no one cares about. Instead, people will convince themselves that itÕs good because they love the originals and canÕt separate this one from the rest. |
