Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Sun Herald

Sunday August 17, 2008

Rob Lowing

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Rated PG

Voices by Matt Lanter, Anthony Daniels, Tom Kane

Critic's warning Frequent animated violence

Critic's rating 2/10

THE new, animated Star Wars feature The Clone Wars is a disgrace. This incoherent action cartoon feels like a shameless attempt to milk more money from avid fans of the live action sextet.

For movie fans it's a reminder that producer-creator George Lucas, the once-talented director of American Graffiti and THX 1138, is now little more than a merchandising chief executive who is unwilling or unable to try anything new.

This reviewer, who slogged through the 2003 straight-to-video collection of bite-sized animated Clone Wars adventures, assumed that a 95-minute spin-off would be an improvement. Not so.

The animation is computer-generated on a basic level; the humans are clunky and puppet-like. Yes, there are visuals which impress on the big screen: a trek across an alien desert, a moonlit fight and lovingly detailed spacecraft.

But Yoda looks rubbery and under-drawn. Anakin Skywalker (still in his Jedi Knight stage, before his transformation to Darth Vader) is a scowling, boring hero, while the ridiculously underdressed female trainee Jedi (think tube tops) is so 1990s that no one old enough to vote could take her seriously. Any admirer of recent Japanese animation and admirers of their apparently effortless use of depth, scope and detail, will be even more disappointed. This reviewer is no gamer but Lucas's standards seem to be lower than the latest video games.

The Clone Wars is presumably only for kids. But at one screening, the mood was glum. The kids seated nearby were restless and confused.

No wonder: the plot rambles around a kidnapping designed to provoke division between the Republic and its allies; Jedi Knights and the Republic's army of clones confront evil Count Dooku and his droids. Lucas's dialogue is as lumpy as ever, the clones all have New Zealand accents (!) and a force-shield is supposedly unstoppable, yet can be breached with ease. Samuel L. Jackson voices briefly but the stars of the live-action series (Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen) are notably absent. Smart fellows.

© 2008 Sun Herald

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