Tuesday, 14 October 2008 00:00 | and posted in Movie Reviews
I thought I'd missed seeing The Clone Wars at the cinema, but the movie got a half-term reprieve! So like any boy (or girl) influenced by an extreme diet of Star Wars, Jedis and lightsabers when growing up, I just had to go and see this movie.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars is effectively Episode 2.5 within the grand scheme of the Star Wars universe attempting to bridge the gap between the second and third movies of the new or prequel trilogy. Many, admittedly hardcore fans, were dissapointed when Episode 3: The Revenge of the Sith, completely missed out the infamous Clone Wars and so this animated movie seeks to remedy this.
However, this movie is not really about the Clone Wars. The War itself just runs in the background in a kind of repetitive manner, where each battle seems samey and uninspired and where Stormtroopers are sacrificed needlessly in ill-advised Jedi-led military manouevres. The movie's story ends up almost entirely focussing on the kidnapping of Jabba the Hutt's baby son. Cue "stinky" jokes and moaning by Anakin Skywalker and "do we really care?" thoughts by the audience.
There are some nice scenes, good lightsaber duals and some comedy moments from Kenobi and the droids, yet the story itself is flat and lacks the excitement of the live-action movies. The new characters aren't that good and while the poster has yoda in "lightsaber action pose," I don't remember him even holding a lightsaber... always disappointing!
A random aside... during the movie I started to get bored about an hour in and so I started wondering, how on earth did the Hutt's become so powerful? I mean they can hardly move...
Anyhow, if you have a 7-9 year old younger brother, they'll love you for taking them to see this. The couple of kids I know this age adore this movie - it's Star Wars after all!
Personally however, I'd only give this movie 1.5 out of 5.