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We have another review of The Clone Wars, written by Andrew Liptak. A few spoilers involving the plot are contained within.
Review: The Clone Wars
The latest installment of the Star Wars franchise is an entertaining, but flawed film that adds to the Clone Wars saga by bringing Lucasfilm into the computer generated imagery realm.
Set shortly after Episode 2: Attack of the Clones, the story opens with the kidnapping of Jabba the Hutt’s son. From there, the story picks up with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, along with their Clone Troopers in a pitched battle. Following that, the heroes go off to secure a treaty with Jabba the Hutt and save his son.
I found the story to be very lacking, and very straight forward. Jabba’s son is kidnapped, in a plot engineered by Count Dooku and Ziro the Hutt (a Truman Capote sounding gangster on Coruscant), designed to split the Jedi off from the outer rim.
The film was very fast, starting off with a monologue that probably would have been better with the traditional yellow scrolling text, and it picks up speed from there. This is one of the strengths of the film - the speed and action. If there’s anything that Star Wars is fantastic at, it’s epic space battles, and this film doesn’t disappoint with the various scenes in which this happens. The same can be said for the ground action with Obi-Wan and the Clone Troopers. The animators did a fantastic job putting everything together, and what we see is a very well animated series of scenes that are not only complex, but well put together.
The clones featured in the film are the highlight of the movie, and I think that the series that’s coming should be highlighting them, rather than the rest of the main characters. In the background, we can see that the animators took particular care with them, as we see them limping in the background, talking to one another. Despite the fact that they’re all cloned from Jango Fett, they’re individuals, particularly some of the ‘face characters’, such as Rex and Cody. Rex especially stood out, and I suspect that he’ll be on his way towards being a fan favorite, especially in the 501st. The scene that really grabbed me was when they were speaking with Ahsoka in the hanger.
According to the novelization, most of the troopers that we saw were 501st, and there were other references to the 501st Fan Legion, such as the pink astromech (R2-KT, named for Katie Johnson), which was a really cool thing to see.
Other parts of the movie just didn’t work, at least not to the level that I was hoping - This was a movie designed geared towards a younger generation. But to me, the dialogue was just painful at times, especially with the main characters such as Anakin. A number of reviews spoke to Ziro the Hutt, who sounded like Truman Capote, but I didn’t find him as annoying as others.
The bottom line for me was that this was an entertaining movie, but certainly not one that will rank with even the prequel trilogy, although there are aspects that do make it stand out among the others. If anything, it will be interesting to see where this goes when it reaches television.
End Review:
This review printed with permission from the blog of Andrew Liptak, a frequent contributor and friend of the site. To visit the original source go to: http://tk3220.wordpress.com/2008/08/17/review-the-clone-wars-2/ you can also visit the 501stcast by clicking on the banner on the left sidebar of the homepage.
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