TheRetroCritic

And here's my review of Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones to end the week in style. Begun, the clone war has...

After the mostly negative feedback The Phantom Menace received, George Lucas nonetheless continued his prequel trilogy with Episode II: Attack Of The Clones , a vastly bigger, slicker and more action-packed effort.  Anakin Skywalker now all grown up, it was up to newcomer Hayden Christensen to take over the role from the wildly unpopular Jake Lloyd and the result was... another wildly unpopular performance fans are still talking about to this very day in hushed tones. Anakin's courtship of Padmé, which inexplicably included talk of sand ("it's coarse and rough and irritating"), did not help matters as the script's more romantic scenes definitely stood out as slightly clumsy. That said, the film around poor old Anakin looked so good and was so entertaining, even a wooden Christensen couldn't hurt it too much even if it did rub quite a few Star Warsians the wrong way. The film means business from the get-go as it learns from The Phantom Menace's mist

Back in 2008, George Lucas produced a feature length animation set between Episode II: Attack Of The Clones and Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith . The Clone Wars was released in cinemas and would kick-start an animated series on Cartoon Network. While the film earned a very healthy amount at the box-office, it was pretty much critically panned. The animation style not exactly wowing critics who were expecting something a little more big-screen friendly instead of what was essentially just a TV pilot. The 3D animation in question certainly didn't go for a realistic take on the characters who all look like wooden caricatures, their hair never flowing in the wind, their faces not that expressive. It takes a little time to get used to and one could see how a critic expecting Pixar would leave the cinema slightly disappointed but on the small screen it's definitely easier to accept. It helps that the backgrounds and the action sequences look great. The animation may have bee

To say that there was a lot of anticipation for George Lucas' Star Wars prequels back before they were released would be sugar-coating what was probably one of geekdom's all-time biggest events. Seeing the rise of Darth Vader could only be awesome. ...right? Well let's just say that if ever there was a way not to start that trilogy, The Phantom Menace was it. Not that it didn't deliver anything of value but the backlash that followed the film was so huge that it made everyone very worried for the rest of the prequels. Jar Jar Binks became the single most hated Star Wars character of all time and The Phantom Menace, by extension, the most hated Star Wars movie of all time. But was that backlash an overreaction or was it somewhat deserved? While I'd love to say that The Phantom Menace was in fact a misunderstood gem, one can't deny just how inept parts of this movie are. Yes, Jar Jar Binks was a bad idea from the start: his bumbling antics unfunny f