May 19, 2002

Episode II

Like millions of others this weekend, Dineen and I went out to see Episode II with my dad, who's in town this weekend. Like many others, I came away with mixed feelings. I generally enjoyed the movie when the people in it were not:

  • speaking,
  • acting, or
  • recreating the Sound of Music.

My favorite parts of the movie came when the people in it were:

  • flying,
  • fighting, or
  • allowing their skin-tight white clothing to unravel.

I find it astonishing that a film of this magnitude can present imaginary creatures generated entirely by computer, producing wholly natural expressions, emotions, and idiosyncrasies; yet that same movie takes actors with proven acting skills - like Samuel L. Jackson, Ewan MacGregor, and heck, even Natalie Portman - and strip them of any nuance beyond the William Shatner threshold.

At first, I thought it was the actors' fault, but no director worth the title would let any actor in his film - let alone every actor - get away with such wooden performances. It must be the director's fault. But how can a director marshal such stiff performances from his human actors yet deliver such impressively life-like computer-generated aliens?

And there we get to the secret. Attack of the Clones is about the glitz and the magic of special effects. The plot is still solid, but every other bit of substance in this film's execution got lost in the manic desire to deliver more, better, slicker gee-whiz effects. To a large extent, it worked. The final battle scenes are stunning, and everyone seems to come away from those impressed. But clunky dialogue and acting that would shame a daytime soap opera detract mightily from the final product.

Lucas has fixed a lot of the problems that plagued Episode I , but I hope he has time to fix these problems as well before he closes the book on this franchise entirely.

On a side note, one thing we learned in Episode II is also true of real life: a Sith Lord controls the Senate and he's fooled everyone into thinking he's still fighting for good.

Posted by wasylik at May 19, 2002 08:36 AM