Attack of the Critics: Mixed Reviews for New ‘Star Wars’

The latest installment of the “Star Wars” saga got a split decision in reviews from Hollywood’s two daily trade papers Thursday. Daily Variety raved, while the Hollywood Reporter mixed lukewarm praise with some blistering criticism.

“George Lucas has reached deep into the trove of his self-generated mythological world to produce a grand entertainment that offers a satisfying balance among the series’ epic narrative, technological and emotional qualities,” Todd McCarthy wrote in Daily Variety of “Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones.”

McCarthy found that “virtually everything that went wrong” in the previous episode, “The Phantom Menace,” has been fixed or at least improved upon in the new film, with exciting action scenes, better story exposition and a restored sense of “overall imaginative purpose.”

Kirk Honeycutt thought differently. Though “Attack of the Clones” “feels more adult than ‘The Phantom Menace,’” he wrote in the Hollywood Reporter, Lucas “still struggles to replicate the spirit of fun and adventure of the original ‘Star Wars’ and ‘The Empire Strikes Back.’”

Honeycutt was particularly harsh in his assessment of the film’s acting (“wooden”), art direction (“dreary”) and digital enhancements (“too much of a good thing”).

In another early review of the film posted Wednesday at Fox news.com, Roger Friedman was also mixed, writing that he “liked a lot” of “Clones” but also thought it contained “hideous dialogue, bad plotting and infomercial-grade acting.”

None of the three reviewers thought the movie would be anything but a box-office hit.