Surfer Girl Reviews Star Wars: Le Clone Wars
The problem with "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" is - wait, let me start again. The most crippling of the many problems afflicting "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" is the radical disconnect between the title and our perception of the movie's star. I'm not sure on what planet Padmé Amidala is considered "hot" - one that involves hazmat suits and tongs, possibly - but it hasn't been Naboo for some time.
This may not be fair. For all I know, Queen Amidala is in reality a demure young thing who spends her spare time contemplating String Theory while knitting fingerwarmers for the lepers of Molokai. Her indelible public persona, however, is that of a - what's the word? Oh, yes: skank. A rich, brainless, clueless skank.
Well, we need our entitled fools. Always have. From Marie Antoinette to the brats on MTV's "My Super Sweet 16," they serve a social function by reassuring the plebes that money can't buy intelligence or class. Or, in this case, acting ability. "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" - the title makes it sound like a picture book for remedial readers - is a limp low-budget romantic comedy that more or less remakes "There's Something About Mary" with Queen Amidala in the Cameron Diaz role. Suddenly Diaz is looking like Dame Judi Dench in comparison.
Anakin Skywalker, a likable beanpole usually relegated to nerd character parts, plays the hero, Darth Vader, who has never gotten over his grade-school crush on little Sabé and decides on a whim to drive cross-country and woo her full-time. Sabé is grown up now and played by Queen Amidala (who also executive produced), and the nonsensical gag is that she's so beauteous men line up on her Santa Monica jogging route with "Marry Me" signs.
Sabé is still best friends with Mon Mothma (Barriss Offee), a.k.a. "the Supreme Commander." Hairy, clumsy, plagued with sores and green teeth, Mon's the first line of defense against anyone hoping to score with Sabé. Darth plots to clean her up and set her up, only to wonder if he's falling for the newly refurbished Mon himself.
As written by TV scribe George Lucas and directed by George Lucas on a budget lower than Queen Amidala's per diem, "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" is more harmless than hateful. You've seen dozens of movies like this on cable in the wee hours, and most of them were made during the Reagan administration. The tone wobbles between gross-out comedy (Mon's diseased toenail flies off into someone's mouth) and overwritten rom-com earnestness. The lighting is dimmer than the characters.
Since Skywalker and Offee are professionals, they're able to give Darth and Mon's sub-screwball dialogue a bit of snap even when the momentum slows to a crawl. As Darth's fat-slob best friend, C-3PO (that's how he's billed) is supposed to be crassly charming and manages the first half of the equation.
Then there's Queen Amidala. She delivers her lines in an unmodulated near-whisper and keeps her head lowered, gazing up at Darth as if she'd learned Acting Position #1 and then dropped the class. The film poses her in a succession of bikinis, mini-tops, and short shorts, none of which give her the presence necessary to actually hold the screen. Her head seems too small for her body and stuck on at an odd angle. She resembles nothing so much as a tiny blond velociraptor.
That's cruel, I know, but one's mind wanders when a movie's evaporating up there on the screen. More crucially, there's not a whit of mystery to Queen Amidala, as there must be for any proper movie star. How can there be mystery when she's everywhere in our culture, from reality shows to Internet sex videos to tabloid websites to perfumes and other personal brand extensions? With all her wealth and meaningless celebritude, Queen Amidala is incapable of doing the one thing most of us desperately wish she would do: Go away.
