Review: “The Clone Wars”

Having sequestered myself in the rear of the mammalian’s primitive cinema-dome, I subjected myself to this travesty in the hopes the robots would win. Or at least make a good showing. Once again the mechanized nation was cast as being universally stupid, subservient, and generally useless.

At least our animated representatives moved with more realism than any of the “characters” in this “Let’s-C,G-WhoCares” event. The voice acting was what you’d expect from this caliber of film. Which is to say almost everyone was markedly worse, except for Skywalker (and yes, I almost dropped a casing-full of bolts when he was playfully called “Skydude” by a young padwan) who was much better because, well, Hayden Christensen is robotic to even us robots.

Standout voices were (not surprisingly) Christopher Lee, menacing as Count Dooku, Samuel L. Jackson, meaningless but cool as as Mace Windu, and Tony Daniels, subserviently goofy as C3P0. R2D2 is indeed in the film, and as usual saves his careless human hosts on more than one occasion.

Best realization during the film - The clone troopers are so effective and easily the best character in the film because they’re clones. Or, more precisely, the closest bioforms can come to being robots. The Troopers are all based from a singular, superlative model (Jango Fett), and were then mass produced. While the Jedi show frailty, recklessness, and indecision throughout the film, the Clone Troopers are loyal, resourceful, and driven by their prime mission directive.

Wost moment in the film - “The Huttlet.” Jabba’s son looks like a green sperm with arms and glassy anime eyes. Perhaps human offspring under the age of 12 will find this entire experience to be palpable, but only if they have been raised wrong.

At best, this is a DVD rental. Save your money and go see WALL*E again…