Star Wars : Attack of the Clones Review Continued...

Warning, major plot points revealed!

The opening scenes of the film that follow the assassination attempt on Coruscant are spectacular!  The car chase through the towering cityscape is reminiscent of the chase scene in The Fifth Element, but 1000 times cooler.  I expect it will be turned into an amusement park ride very soon.  

Obi-Wan's visit to Kamino is equally impressive.  The vast cloning complex where we find out Storm Troopers are grown is really fascinating, although I thought it borrowed much of it's look from the human battery pod rooms in The Matrix.  At the facility we get to meet Jango Fett and his son Boba.  Jango is the genetic model for the clones and a top-notch mercenary.  His death later in the film provides more insight into the motivations of Boba Fett in the later episodes.  

The Jedi battle on Geonosis is also a staggering achievement.  For the first time we get to see an entire collective of Jedi fighting at the same time.  The fight takes place in an enormous coliseum and includes giant monsters, an army of droids (including some new and much more deadly ones), a civilization of evil wasp type creatures, and Storm Troopers under the command of the Jedi!  This is one of the scenes I will have to watch many times before I can truly say that I've seen it.  

The second best scene in the movie is the death of Anakin's mother.  After her abduction and presumed rape and torture, Anakin finds his mother at a Tusken Raider (Sand People) village moments before she succumbs to death in his arms.  His pain and anger are palpable and he flies off into a rage and massacres the entire village.  The men, the women and the children.  It's unfortunate that they had to cut the scene right when he loses it, but I suppose it would have been far too violent for the younger viewers.  It was really fun to watch though, as well as the expression on Yoda's face when he feels the massacre from The Force.

Which leads me to the best part of the movie...  Yoda.  As a kid I always liked Yoda.  He has become an archetype of wisdom in our culture.  Everybody knows who he is and I'm sure nerdy teachers the world over wish their students to think of them as Yoda-like.  In the first 3 films Yoda is very old.  We know he's a powerful Jedi but I always thought his size prohibited him from action.  Rather I thought of him as the "brain" of the Jedi Counsel.  The Phantom Menace did nothing to assuage this belief, because even though he was younger, he was still old, wise, and sitting down throughout the movie.  Attack of the Clones proves how very wrong I was.  During the film we hear references to Yoda's swordsmanship but near the end of the movie we actually get to see it for the first time.  His light saber battle with Count Dooku is one of the best fight sequences in movie history.  His movements are so fast you can barely comprehend what's going on.  The scene is so cool that my friend Chuck and I were talking about the film today and neither of us remember how the movie ends.  Yoda's fight is a complete sensory overload.  He is 100% digital in this movie and has shed his Muppet-ness entirely.  His facial expressions are perfect and his movement is completely fluid and natural. 

Attack of the Clones is already one of my favorite movies ever.  I look forward to the next chapter with great enthusiasm.  Unfortunately I have to wait until the spring of 2005 to see it.