Natalie Portman, a mere bud of dullness in Phantom Menace, has blossomed into a fully-formed flower of bad acting here, her head and ears winsomely framed in a different outlandish post-Leia hairstyle in every scene.
Sadly many of the performances marry up to this writing style in an ecstatic merger of form and content. The dialogue is every bit as clunky as we come to have to expect from the great man (despite a co-writing credit for Jonathan Hales), and however state-of-the-art his effects are, when it comes to nouns, adjectives, conjunctions and the like, Mr Lucas has got out his trusty crayon. He actually says the words: "Business is business." Oy. Even worse news is that Tattooine's insidious Faginesque slave-trader is back too, hook-nose and all, shruggingly revealing that he has sold Anakin Skywalker's mother.
Unrepentant, producer-director George Lucas has declared that Jar Jar stays in the picture, but pointedly gives him a more high-status role: speaking in the senate, even proposing historic changes to the constitution.
Jar Jar Binks has been brought back for Episode II, presumably in a last-ditch attempt to shift millions of tons of dolls. With: Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Ian McDiarmid, Samuel L Jackson, Pernilla August, Jack Thompson, Christopher Leeįirst, the bad news, and what devastatingly bad news it is. Star Wars Episode II - Attack of the Clones ***