"GIVE A DOG A CLONE" (reviewed by OG)

Okay...so here's the part where I'm supposed to dis the new Star Wars installment because George Lucas has gone off the fucking deep end with the CGI and lost all sense of storytelling and logic within the storyline. Or no...wait. This is the part where I praise Lucas' new contribution to the Star Wars saga because he's George Lucas, and by God, I'll stand by him. After all...the guy did give us the original Star Wars trilogy...AND he helped cool shit like Indiana Jones hit the big screens back in the day. He also executive produced "Leprechaun". Fuck George Lucas. I love him.

God, I'm confused.

Either way, after 2 and a half hours of digital wizardry and 30's serial-style storytelling (Holy shit! Is he gonna...? No! He gets out of a tight one yet again!), I stepped out of the Lithonia movie theater exhausted and bleeding from my left eye. Yes, folks, it's better than the Episode One, but then again, so was my last bowel movement. So I should use a better frame of reference, what do you say?

So we have Anakin Skywalker, 10 years after the first installment. He's a confused and bitter young Jedi who resents his master, Obi Wan Kenobi. He runs into Queen Amidala, whom he hasn't stopped whacking off to since he hit puberty, and the shit hits the fan. Jedi, you see, aren't supposed to love, and they're not supposed to use their mind tricks to get head either. But hey...rules are made to be broken. "You WILL suck the tip..." (waves hand).

Let's see...did I miss anything? Oh yeah. There's some sort of convoluted political struggle going on between the Republic and the Separatists, and there's this bad guy played by Christopher Lee (AKA: Saruman the White) whose entourage includes a creature whose vocal patterns sound like someone taking an explosive shit. Goddamn, I couldn't stop laughing every time that fucker talked.

But I digress. The plot involves some deep political maneuvering on the part of the Emperor...I mean...er..Senator Palpatine. Jar Jar Binks is back, and his part is thankfully reduced to 5 minutes of annoying chatter, as well as one of the biggest bonehead moves in film history (let's just say that the shitstorm that ensues in episodes 4-6 can be directly credited to the lanky computer generated buttslammer's senatorial judgment). Enter Lee's character, Count DooKoo, and bounty hunter Jango Fett (not to be confused with Django Rhinehardt, a great jazz musician/bounty hunter in his own right), whose son Boba (played by a mean kid with a giant forehead) grows up to be a badass in parts 5 and 6. Jango has an army of clones modeled after him (and they all look Samoan...go figure) that a jedi once commissioned for an army back when Yoda and the rest of the...you know what? Fuck this. Go see it yourself.

Suffice to say that, despite the fantastic effects and action sequences, Episode 2 tends to get a tad boring at times. The love angle is handled clumsily...and it's never clear why Anakin looks like a 19 year old and Amidala looks exactly the same as she did in Episode 1, when Anakin was 10 or so. Okay...so that's a bullshit complaint. I'm bored. Ewan MacGregor does a great job as Obi Wan, capturing the original Alec Guiness' every nuance. Sam Jackson, as Jedi Mace Windu, does a fine job as well, finding fun in his role. If the first 75% of the flick don't do much for you, though, the final 40 minutes or so are a blast. Non-stop action all the way through, and a Jedi vs Jedi saber battle that had me smiling and clapping like some sort of retarded 34 year old with a pituitary gland infection.

So go see it. Or don't. I think I liked it. Or maybe I'm just fooling myself? Either way, I made it home from that theater without getting shot or robbed. So I guess I liked it.

May the Force be with you.

(The congregation replies: "And also with you")

(5.20.02)