An Old Dog No Longer Barks .."Attack of the Clones" get an hilarious trashing.

newsgroups | may 2002 | Rex Reed

[remaininlight]

 

 

An Old Dog No Longer Barks
by Rex Reed



Hold on to your No-Doz: Another Star Wars is here. Episode II-Attack of the
Clones is as exciting as a rancid Yoo-Hoo. These horrors don't go away; they
just keep coming back, like penicillin-resistant viruses. This $120 million
installment (cheap by series standards) looks and sounds like the four that
came before, except that it's noisier and stupider than the last-and twice
as boring.

From his secluded Skywalker Ranch in the California redwoods, George Lucas
has built a billion-dollar empire putting comic books on film. Grown-ups
with the arrested development of 12-year-olds have been sleeping in the
street waiting to get into Episode II-Attack of the Clones. When they do,
they laugh all the way through it. They know, despite the hype and secrecy
and marketing hysteria, what the rest of us have known for years: None of
the money, power and fame that have made Mr. Lucas a legend in his own mind
and an éminence grise in Hollywood can turn him into a good director. He
knows everything about technology and not a damned thing about how to tell a
story coherently. After fanatic fans and jaded critics alike declared
Episode I-The Phantom Menace a bomb, it piled up $431 million anyway. So
welcome to the fifth of the six installments in this Saturday-afternoon
kiddie jamboree of silly sequels and prequels with Flash Gordon space guns,
a matinee serial told backwards. As Jar Jar Binks, the insulting black
stereotype and most obnoxious character in the Star Wars galaxy, might say,
"The Force done be left me years ago." But that won't stop this feeble blaze
of clanking puppets and flying Frisbees from lining Mr. Lucas' pockets with
enough revenue to rebuild the World Trade Center.

Since I snoozed through whole chunks of this drivel, the best analysis of
the soporific "plot" I can come up with is this: 10 years after The Phantom
Menace, there's still a lot of gibberish about trade federations, warring
androids, rechargeable laser swords and the mysteries surrounding the Sith.
Much unrest in the galaxy. The former Jedi and evil renegade, Count Dooku
(Christopher Lee, from the cheesy old British Dracula movies, who wreaks
havoc from a flying motor scooter), has led the separatists away from the
Republic, and there aren't enough Jedi left to protect it. So a secret army
of clones has been assembled like General Motors parts on the planet Kamino.

Backed by the Trade Federation, Commerce Guild, Intergalactic Banking Clan,
Techno Union and Corporate Alliance, Dooku has crossed over to the Dark Side
with the aid of a villainous bounty hunter, Jango Fett. Are you still with
me?

Meanwhile, the former Queen of Naboo has grown up to become the blank-faced,
cleavage-baring Senator Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman), and the whiny
little Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) has turned into a pouty,
arrogant, rebellious Jedi trainee under the patient tutelage of our old
friend Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor). Assigned to guard Amidala after an
assassination attempt, Obi-Wan's apprentice falls in love and disobeys
orders at the same time, chasing off to Tatooine, Naboo and Coruscant for
fun and frolic. It's so easy to see why he'll eventually turn into Darth
Vader that when Obi-Wan says, "Why does something tell me you'll end up
being the death of me?" the audience roars with laughter. The exposition
scenes would lull even children who aren't suffering from attention-deficit
disorders to sleep. The dialogue is sub-mental, but Toronto commercial pinup
Hayden Christensen, as the reckless, lovesick and corruptible Anakin, and
Ms. Portman, as the monotonous, gooey-faced Amidala, are so relentlessly
wooden they make the moronic script by Mr. Lucas and Jonathan (The Scorpion
King) Hales sound even worse than it looked on paper. Without a coherent
narrative or riveting dialogue for caulking to hold the silly digital
effects together, the movie just hangs out, like the moppets at the popcorn
machine. In the first Star Wars trilogy, there was always an amusing toy or
unexpected scene to talk about later. I couldn't remember anything in
Episode II-Attack of the Clones 10 minutes after I lumbered through the exit
door.

Clearly, the Lucas fantasy is an old dog that no longer barks. Now they're
just beating it to death. With nothing but blue screens in the background,
the actors play to a blank wall, then get upstaged by the high-definition
computer-generated action figures superimposed later, in postproduction.
Even a pro like Samuel L. Jackson, reappearing as Jedi counselor Mace Windu,
looks bewildered, then catatonic. Sensing disaster from recycled droid wars
and a love story out of Her Highness and the Bellboy, Mr. Lucas drags in new
characters I can't spell, pronounce or identify, as well as old familiars
like the clanking C-3PO; the chirpy little automaton R2-D2; the scrap-metal
Stepinfetchit, Jar Jar Binks, with his incomprehensible Jamaican patois; and
even old Yoda, the 800-year-old wizard who dispenses dopey wisdom on a
whoopee cushion and looks like an animated subway rat on a high-carb diet.
This time Yoda joins the fray, tossing away his cane and grabbing his
rechargeable light saber to fight off 79-year-old Christopher Lee, who is
actually swinging knives at empty spaces. Is it any wonder the movie looks
like it takes place in an asylum? The fun has even gone out of Yoda. Still
the voice of Frank Oz but no longer a hairy, wiggly-eared puppet, Yoda has
been reduced to a digitally processed, squinty-eyed Mickey Mouse with
glaucoma. Dreadful acting, a funereal pace and a lot of old toys wheeled in
just to remind you what it was you liked about Star Wars 25 years ago don't
say much for the future of a worn-out idea that has woefully run out of jet
fuel. The young lovers land on a conveyor belt dodging giant staple guns,
the three stars are sent to a Roman-style forum to be executed by whatever
unused monster was left over from Jurassic Park, and it's a fight to the
death with those damned neon hockey sticks. Haven't we been there before?
Even the title is a fake: There is no attack of the clones. At the end,
thousands of them march into spaceships to launch a clone war, but they're
only paving the way for (oy vey!) next year's Star Wars: Episode III. The
prospect fills me with as much anticipation as a margarine shortage.

[Darth Reagan]

I saw Episode 2 AOTC at the midnight show last night here in Austin.

Did you see with with Harry?

[Demosthenes]

Hey man, it ain't supposed to be Ender's Game, or Hyperion, it's never pretended to be anything BUT plastic toys in space, basic good guys versus bad....

Hmmm....Hyperion, now THERE'S a movie I'd like to see made....

[Ted]

Can't hit that url, I dunno... joke?...

[Calico Cat]

Ben Bova, Isaac Asimov and Harlan Ellison are three major science fiction writers who have written of their dislike for the "Star Wars" franchise.

[Darth Reagan]

The site's been locked up. Harry Knowles runs the website "Ain't It Cool News" about movies. It has some power in the industry and he runs it from Austin. Here's the guy's book. He's a big Star Wars geek.

[Darth Reagan]

And Harlan Ellison is a big Star Trek fan, probably because Trek is more into the science that Star Wars is. But, big deal if Ben, Isaac and Harlan don't like Star Wars. It's a space fantasy and its story is a modern myth rather than an investigation into the effect of fictional science on humanity.

[discostu]

And one of the oldest rules of moviedome remains true: if Rex Reed hates it you should go see it.

[mewzilla]

Note to Mr. Reed: That's penicillin-resistant bacteria, if you don't mind.

If you're going to trash something with a metaphor, Rex, at least get the metaphor straight.

[bertdog1]

I have to agree with you. If Rex doesn't like it then it is likely worth viewing. However, anyone that camps out for days to watch it must be of some questionable intellect, or maybe better yet, questionable common sense.

Bertdog1

[discostu]

Rex is one of the last "great" artsy critics, these are people that have forgotten that movies are ENTERTAINMENT and should be fun (BTW my review of Ep II is: nice beginning, typical GL 2nd act problems, last 45 minutes is one great ride that's worth the price of admission; over all not nearly as good as Empire (my favorite) but not nearly competing with Ep I and Return for worst of the series, a solid Star Wars movie).

As for camping out it depends on why you're doing it. In my wild youth I camped out for movie and concert tickets, it's fun. Of course back then it was the only to get good seats, but it's actually a lot of fun hanging out with like minded goofballs. I have very fond memories of camping out for a Star Trek movie while one of the local independant station did a Trek marathon. I'm too old and decrepit to do anything like that anymore (well I could, but I'd be so stiff from sleeping on the sidewalk I wouldn't enjoy the movie).

Anybody that hasn't done opening day of either of the "Star" series definitely should next time around, you don't have to camp anymore, it's really cool seeing the logo hit with an opening day crowd.

[Brett66]

This was a fun movie, a very enjoyable movie-going experience. If you go into it expecting perfect plots, great acting and great writing then you won't like it. If you go wanting to see Jedi kick @ss then you'll love it. My expectations matched the movie and there are some great moments that are unique to the Star Wars experience you won't get anywhere else. When Yoda pulls his robe back to unviel his light-saber, it was a great "moment". That's what drives Star Wars fans, experiencing those great "moments" with friends.

[the]

[Behind Liberal Lines]

I have often thought that the first "star wars" movie helped pave the way for the Reagan revolution.

No kidding.

It came out in the late 1970s during the Jimmy Carter era. America was suffering from a malaise, according to our rabbit whacker in chief, not realizing the malaise was caused by living under dingbats like him.

Then Star Wars came out. The first "sci fi" movie--if not first movie-- in years full of hope and optimism. And people went nuts for it, even though it was post Vietnam and our "pundits" said we'd never again want to see anything with "war" in it after Vietnam.

And at the height of the Star Wars craze, militant Muslim radicals seized the American embassy. An "evil empire" began rattling its sabre once again. Our Peanut farming President made us feel powerless. The force was no longer with us.

Watching all of this our public, still inspired by Star Wars, yearned for the days of kick butt movie heroes, not afraid to show up, strike a blow for justice and take names.

And when it came time to elect a president we chose a candidate who not only touched on the classic themes of an old fashioned movies, he was an actor who actually played in old movies: Ronald Reagan.

So diss Star Wars if you want, but remember, there's a good chance that without we'd have had four more years of Jimmy Carter malaise.