Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)

Compared to The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones is a little more of what I’m looking for from a Star Wars prequel, delving deeper into Anakin Skywalker’s fall from grace into the throes of the Dark Side.  But while Clones rectifies some of its predecessor’s excesses and missteps, it’s not an unequivocally good film, hampered as it is by bad acting and deliberately opaque plotting.

Ten years after the events of the previous film, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and his apprentice Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) are assigned to protect Senator Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman) after an attempt on her life.  The search for the assassin leads Obi-Wan to the bounty hunter Jango Fett (Temuera Morrison) and an army of clones, while Anakin and Padmé attempt to avoid the romance burgeoning between them.

I’m not sure if George Lucas or his newfound cowriter Jonathan Hales is to thank, but Attack of the Clones improves on The Phantom Menace in two ways that are guaranteed to facilitate an enjoyable moviegoing experience – less Jar Jar Binks and more action.  Everyone’s least favorite CGI character is virtually absent from this film, and in his place are more action sequences, including a great battle between Jango Fett and Obi-Wan, a gladiator-style arena scene, and an opportunity for Yoda to throw down in a duel with, of all people, Christopher Lee.  As setpieces, these are good fun and quintessential Star Wars, even if the end gets a bit messy with so many lightsabers flying about that the plot becomes somewhat indistinguishable.

As for the plot, Lucas and Hales do commit the cardinal sin of cinema – abandoning mysteries.  In the Star Wars universe, this is especially problematic when the work of addressing plot points is relegated to the Expanded Universe of novels and comics – where, I’m told, the mystery of Sifo-Dyas and the clone army is explained.  But this instance crosses the line between immersive multi-platform storytelling and, honestly, lazy writing.  It’s introduced with some fanfare – this is essentially Obi-Wan’s major plot thread, and he makes some to-do about how the mystery defies reason, but it’s dropped.  (The answer, according to the Internet, is more complex than need be, though I could think of several easier options right off the bat.)

The biggest problem with Clones, though, is Hayden Christensen’s performance as Anakin.  Although the prequel trilogy is supposedly anchored by Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side, Christensen’s portrayal is entirely unconvincing.  In the moments when he’s not blatantly underperforming, his scenes of intense anger often come across as a petulant child shouting in order to get what he wants.  That statement, however, does a disservice to child actors, who could actually muster up plausible emotion.  To be fair, much of the romantic dialogue in the film is astoundingly hamfisted, and many of the finest actors might be stymied by lines like “I'm haunted by the kiss that you should never have given me.”  But whether we blame the poor writing, the languid direction, or a simple inability to emote, the film’s emotional center feels somewhat creepy with Portman – who’s trying, you can really tell – inexplicably falling for a man who seems to admit he’s been stalking her.

Christensen is just one example of just how drastically this film lacks any human soul.  Lucas likes to boast about how much of the film is not real, how much is computer-generated – but it’s not something of which to be proud.  Much of Clones feels artificial and sterilized because it’s all so very unreal; while the CGI effects on Yoda and R2-D2 allow the characters to transcend their stodgier incarnations and literally fly around, one senses that it comes at a price, the loss of (if nothing else) a Benjamin-ian aura of authenticity.  It doesn’t help that some of the effects – mainly the ones to do with backgrounds – have not aged quite well and are very apparently the work of green-screen filming.  (You’ll understand Ian McKellen’s lament when you see just how synthetic some of these shots appear.)

But there are things in Clones that work, so I’ll rattle them off briefly.  The John Williams score is, again, top-notch, especially his “Across the Stars” piece that underpins many of the romantic scenes; in fact, put the dialogue on mute, and the score alone could carry the plot better than the acting.  McGregor starts to own Obi-Wan beyond a mere Alec Guinness impression, though he’s still more a slave to the logic of the plot than a full character in control of his decisions.  It’s a real treat to see Samuel L. Jackson swinging a lightsaber (purple, no less), and I’ll never say no to the distinguished pedigree of Christopher Lee, who manages to circumvent the clunky opacity surrounding the mystery of his character’s allegiances.

While Clones is still a far cry from the Star Wars prequels you really want to see, it’s a few steps closer to the right direction, perhaps due to some degree of delegation on the part of George Lucas (it’s no surprise that The Empire Strikes Back, certainly the best of the series, is the film with which he had the least to do).  Its greatest flaw, though, is reducing the greatest villain in the galaxy to a whiny lovestruck 20-something who misses his mommy – played, I might add, rather unsuccessfully.

Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones is rated PG for “sustained sequences of sci-fi action/violence.”  The film contains lots of blaster fire (droids against clones), lightsaber battles (including one decapitation and one arm amputation, both bloodless), and a trio of scary beasties, one of whom mauls a character’s back, drawing blood.  Oh, and the occasional kissy-face.

We’ll be back in two hours with the final prequel film, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith!

The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

After a lackluster debut in Live and Let Die, Roger Moore’s tenure as Bond was off to an inauspicious start, peppered with inopportune humor and a dated sensibility.  Though not quite perfect, The Man with the Golden Gun vastly improves on its predecessor for a more than enjoyable second outing with Moore.

James Bond (Moore) receives a death threat from legendary assassin Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee), who vows to kill 007 with a bullet from his golden gun.  Facing a mandatory leave of absence from MI6, Bond instead opts to pursue Scaramanga across Asia, a quest less-than-ably assisted by secret agent Mary Goodnight (Britt Ekland).  But on Scaramanga’s secret island base – under the custodial care of his henchman Nick Nack (Hervé Villechaize) – Bond discovers Scaramanga’s real motives in the midst of a duel quite literally to the death.

I had good things to say about Roger Moore in Live and Let Die: surprising even myself, considering his reputation as an unpalatable Bond for today’s grim-n-gritty crowd.  Fortunately, those still stand with Golden Gun.  Moore’s Bond is different than Connery’s, less aggressive and more suave; he remains entirely capable, compelling, and convincing as an able-bodied (in every sense of the word) secret agent.  He delivers the one-liners with the right placement of his tongue in his cheek, but he’s equally at home firing a pistol or pursuing clues (more on those later).

More importantly, though, Christopher Lee is a phenomenally first-rate Bond villain as Scaramanga.  More than atoning for Live and Let Die’s rather limp villainous cast, Lee is the baddie we deserve – perhaps no surprise, considering his impressive thespian résumé.  Indeed, with anyone else wielding the titular golden gun, this film might have been a dull entry in the canon, but Lee’s presence elevates the picture into another stratosphere.  It helps that the character is exceptionally well-written, with fascinating motivations (even amid a slightly hokey technosabotage subplot) and – if we’re being totally honest – a really cool gimmick in the form of that some-assembly-required firearm.  Lee and Moore play off each other quite well; in a parallel universe somewhere, there’s a version of this film starring Sean Connery opposite Lee, but for now this one will do (although the Steve Coogan/Rob Brydon reinterpretation ain’t bad, either).

The less said about Britt Ekland, the better; she’s the worst kind of Bond Girl, the kind whose irrelevance to the plot is thrown into sharp relief whenever the screenwriters shoehorn her into a romantic scene with Bond.  Perhaps worse, it’s apparent that Ekland was not cast on the strengths of her audition tape; instead, it seems she was cast solely for the wardrobe change in the third act which restricts her to a skimpy bikini and makes her literally the butt of a joke about her incompetence as a field agent.  Similar jeers go to Clifton James as Sheriff J.W. Pepper, apparently on vacation in Thailand; this boorish caricature of a performance feels entirely out of place in this film, a brutal swerve toward lowbrow comic relief that’s as out of place as Larry the Cable Guy would have been in Skyfall.  (Please, Lord, don’t let any important decision makers see that idea.)

Ultimately what redeems The Man with the Golden Gun – Lee aside, of course – is director Guy Hamilton’s navigation of a screenplay that takes him back to his Goldfinger roots.  Like most of my favorite Bond movies, this one involves Bond searching out clues and evidence; neither he nor the audience has all the pieces when the film starts.  This air of mystery that Hamilton cultivates, even amid the irritating supporting cast and the grotesquely misplaced slapstick comedy, makes The Man with the Golden Gun an engrossing feature film, one that plays to the strengths of its leads and its director.  Compared to Live and Let Die, Golden Gun ends up being Moore’s (and Hamilton’s) finer hour.

But I hear the next one is even better?

The Man with the Golden Gun is rated PG.  The standard amount of gunplay occurs in this film, though a few headshots with bloody trickles are shown.  Bond seduces two women; two women are seen naked, though one is behind frosted glass, and the other is implied to be skinny-dipping.

James Bond and The Cinema King will return in a review of The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) on October 7, 2013!  (And would you believe I’ve actually never seen this one before?)

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

If it's Day Two of Depp Week here on The Cinema King, that means it must be Tuesday. And if you're smelling cocoa beans, don't adjust your set, because that indicates only that we're coming under the chocolate waterfall to the next Depp/Burton collaboration under scrutiny (and a surefire chance for yet another food metaphor) - 2005's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Here Depp plays eccentric recluse and chocolate bar wunderkind Willy Wonka, who for the first time is opening his factory's doors to the five lucky winners of a candy bar contest. Those bearers of the golden tickets - gluttonous Augustus Gloop, uber-competitive Violet Beauregarde, covetous Veruca Salt, media addict Mike Teavee, and good-natured Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore) - are treated to an all-access tour of the factory and all its magical secrets. But as this is a Roald Dahl story, the children's own vices - and the sins of their parents - will prove to be their chocolatey downfall, and the most virtuous of them will be rewarded.

I'll say in honesty that this is not Johnny Depp's finest performance. It's a good turn by him. It's typical Depp - wholly engrossed in the part and just this side of normal. But it's not his best. Comparatively, it's about as good as his turn in Alice in Wonderland. Willy Wonka is good, and there's nothing wrong with him, but it's just that we know Depp is capable of so much more. Of course, there's no other performance in the film that comes close to what Depp's up to (save perhaps Deep Roy, who portrays all the Oompa-Loompas, even the female ones), but Willy Wonka is just good but not great. But then again, even when Johnny Depp "phones it in," it's only the difference between an express train and a bullet train.

But I think the strongest comment I can make in praise of Charlie - and really, I did enjoy it, even after about one or two viewings a year until this most recent one - is that it's leaps and bounds better than its predecessor, 1971's ill-advised Newley/Bricusse musical version, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, led by Gene Wilder. A large part of this is due to the fact that this interpretation - as recognizable as it is as a product of director Burton's unique vision - adheres much closer to Roald Dahl's sensibilities than did the music-and-whimsy Wilder version. As much fun as Wilder was as Wonka (indeed, his version remains definitive in a way that Depp's isn't yet), the fact is that the original movie is a stinker; the acting is lame, the songs lamer, and a corporate espionage plotline shoehorned into the already meandering screenplay. Here the only songs are from Dahl's own book, sung gleefully by the Oompa-Loompas (all voiced by the unequivocal genius and frequent Burton partner Danny Elfman) after each child's inevitable and quasi-grisly exit from the factory; that the songs are all different (one a Brit-pop ballad, another an apparent homage to Queen) and closer to the source material belies a more earnest feel, something I never got from "Pure Imagination" or "I've Got a Golden Ticket" (which I detested so much that I can't be bothered to verify that was the actual title of the song Jack Albertson sang in the 1971 version).

So it sounds good, but the film looks even better, filled with Burton trademark flourishes and near-cameos by Burton regulars Helena Bonham Carter (as Charlie's mother) and Christopher Lee. It's Lee's turn as Wonka's father - dentist Dr. Wilbur Wonka - that's one of the more inspired additions to the film; while Wilbur appears nowhere in the original novels, his addition feels natural and lends a degree of plausibility to the otherwise indulgently kooky Wonka character. It humanizes the character in a way that it's almost impossible to remember that the candy mogul didn't originally have a chocophobic dentist for a father. But this is a movie that would work just as well on "Mute" as it would with the audio on; it's more colorful than a 96-count Crayola box, and it's fluid in a way that recalls the chocolate waterfall at the film's centerpiece.

But I do need to answer the criticism that I've often leveled while invoking this movie's name. I've said before that this film and others suffer from a creative mindset of "These are the story beats we need to hit, so let's keep moving because there's a lot we have to cover." Perhaps it's a casualty of the actual plot of the movie - a tour through certain rooms in which dramatic set pieces occur. But there's never a feel that anything in this movie is not preordained; certainly there are overt implications that Willy Wonka has planned each child's demi-demise, but there's a similar lack of creativity in the screenplay adaptation. Wilbur Wonka aside, it's almost too faithful, slavishly loyal to the source material; there's never a sense, for example, that there are other rooms in the factory beyond the few the kiddies get to see (although we do get shots of other rooms much later in the film). Consequently, it feels almost too generic, as though there are no other alternatives for how this whole thing will shake itself out.

In short, it's better than that other one. It feels pretty close, but it looks vastly different. That's the most critical deviation - the Burton look. And tossing Johnny Depp into the mix never hurt, either.

Hey, look at that. Nary a culinary metaphor in sight. Well done, indeed.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is rated a mere PG "for quirky situations, action and mild language." I'm not even going to pretend I know what that means. It's cartoonish, so the kids can probably handle it.

Depp Week continues into Wednesday with Once Upon a Time in Mexico, but keep your eyes peeled for a special bonus post between now and then, featuring a certain doe-eyed Disney star who's no stranger to this site. Stay tuned!