Star Wars: The Clone Wars

I don't have to tell you that this movie blows. If you were at all interested, you've read scads of scathing reviews already. I'm not a die-hard Star Wars fanatic that knows the back-story of every tertiary character, but even I could tell Lucas phoned this one in from a tin-can attached to a wet string.

Thankfully, I went in with ridiculously low expectations and they were more or less met. I paid the $10 knowing what I was getting into and for that I can't be mad at anyone but myself. Plus the theater was empty so I had plenty of room to roll my eyes 360 degrees. And I brought along a bag of Jelly Belly jelly beans. It was the best I could make of a bad Star Wars film.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars takes place during the Franco-Prussian War that happened sometime between 1870 and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. It was a time when opening crawls are replaced by over-exuberant narrators. Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi are engaged in a fierce battle with slapstick killer droids. Soon we meet a young Padawan (their word for "apprentice", even though 90% of their English resembles ours) who just flew in from a Bratz appearance at the mall to become Anakin's student, despite his reluctance. Full of spunk and face make-up, she proves to be quite the handful for him though Yoda insists that "ready, Anakin is" and the audience realizes that that novel speech pattern of his begins to irritate after six movies.

Soon after emerging victorious from the battle, delivers the news, Yoda does that a band of nogoodniks have taken Jabba the Hutt's son. The Jedi rise to the task of rescuing the heavy ball of snot, if only to secure safety through the trade routes Jabba controls and give them something to do for the second half of the film.

Let's look for the purple banana 'til they put us in the truck.

It turns out the kidnapping was a scheme to frame the Jedi. Ziro the Hutt, who obviously watched "Purple Rain" and decided to combine the wardrobe of Prince and the mannerisms of Morris Day to form his rather unorthodox (for a "Hutt" at least) personality, conspired with Lord Dooku in an attempt to seize power from his nephew and spend his days watching weird alien chicks twirl around (or alien dudes as it would seem). But through some clever sleuthing, Padmé Armadillo (or Amidala, whatever) uncovers the scheme. They would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those meddling Jedi. The young Hutt is returned safely to Jabba and everyone stands around self-satisfied until the quick iris wipe takes us to the credits.

As a theatrical film, Clone Wars fails on so many levels. First, the animation looks antiquated. I remember asking my friend if this was a preview for a Wii videogame tie-in when the movie started. Next, you can tell that they decided to slap together two episodes of the upcoming cartoon and bilk fans out of ten dollars for something they would have gotten for free. Third and finally, the dialogue sits somewhere between "Disney" and "Corey Haim". That is, the characters are definately "cooler than you" but they're not above delivering a groaner.

If you're a die-hard Star Wars fan, do yourself a favor and skip this in the theaters. If you go to see it, you're only encouraging Lucas to shell out more half-assed Star Wars crap and it'll be only a matter of time before he runs out of bad ideas and just releases the "Star Wars Christmas Special" to iMax screens.

Actually, come to think of it, I'd pay to see that.