 Star Wars Episode II – A Dark Betrayal (2002) One can only hope that Episode III will provide some sort of context that will help to make sense of Episode II. Don't get me wrong, I am a dyed-in-the-wool Star Wars fan and not one of the typical knee-jerk critics who seeks to jump on the backlash bandwagon. But I have to be honest: A Dark Betrayal just isn't a very good movie. Probably the most instantly glaring problem with the film, and I hate to even point it out, is Natalie Portman's performance as Queen Amidala. Her recent stroke has, sad to say, stripped her of the magic and power she brought to the role in Episode I, and it is indeed painful to sit there in the theater watching her struggle with the simplest of lines, laboring over them with obvious frustration. Half of the lines she can not even pronounce, and the result is a slurred mush of a performance that is far more freak show than Academy Award showcase. I'm not trying to be callous, but just expressing the plain truth. I mean, no one would have liked Star Wars if Chris Burke had played Luke. Samuel L. Jackson's presence, too, is confusing. He seems to be playing an entirely different character from Mace Windu (his Episode I role), and this goes entirely unexplained. In A Dark Betrayal, he is not a Jedi, does not speak English, and in fact has no interaction with any of the primary characters. Lucas just keeps cutting to shots of Jackson alone on some kind of marsh-like planet (precursor to Dagobah???), muttering to himself and blowing snot "farmer style" out of his nose at these tiny, fat little Elf creatures. I have no idea what Lucas intended these scenes to symbolize, and I was utterly lost for an explanation. One of the biggest missteps is the casting of William Ragsdale (former star of "Herman's Head" and Mannequin II) as a young Lando Calrissian. What are we supposed to make of this? Did Lucas think it would escape our attention that Ragsdale is not black? Or is there some aspect in Episode III that will let us in on how Ragsdale supposedly grows up to be Billy Dee Williams? And beyond that: Williams himself has been cast in Dark Betrayal as Obi-Wan Kenobi, a last-minute substitution for Ewan MacGregor, who had bowed out of production to work on the upcoming Kevin Smith-directed film version of Prez, First Teen President. On the one hand, it was awesome to see Billy Dee back in a Star Wars film, but on the other: was that the right role for him? I mean, come on, he's supposedly the thirtysomething Obi-Wan here, halfway between Ewan MacGregor and Alec Guinness!!! As Yoda would say, "Things are getting curiouser and curiouser." To his credit, Williams is excellent in the role. The same can not be said for Hayden Christensen, who assumes the mantle of Anakin Skywalker. His smug delivery and unnecessary eye-rolling would be better suited to the "fill-in-the-blank" teen high school comedy of the moment. Plus, what the hell was with him twirling a yo-yo the whole time? Obviously a cutesy attempt to put a new spin on the Darth Vader mythos, but Jesus Christ! Also, his love scenes with Portman are excruciating to watch, not the least because she is bound to a wheelchair, but also because his, shall we say, unnatural deformity is given far too much prominence in the photography. If you objected to the fart jokes in Phantom Menace, you'll absolutely HATE the money shots in Dark Betrayal. The computer-generated special effects are, for the most part, very good. The scene when Anakin pilots the Falcon Centurion through the volcano planet is classically thrilling in true Star Wars fashion. Also, the "Ghost Troopers" are genuinely frightening, and I can't wait to see how they develop into the Stormtroopers we know from the original trilogy. A few instances of CGI fall terribly flat, though, such as the scene where Anakin enlarges to Godzilla-like size and slices a Federation ship in half with his light saber, and the one wherein Yoda lifts an entire planet out of its orbit with his "Jedi mind power" and hurtles it toward the Imperial Orb (sort of a predecessor of what will become the Death Star in Episode IV). These battle sequences are amazing, although the reliance on Greek and Roman mythology is embarrassingly transparent: can someone explain to me what exactly the god Poseidon is doing in this film? Lucas's decision to not use John Williams for the score has already received ample scorn from fans on the net, so I won't go into that here. What I will say is that I am incredibly flummoxed by what he has chosen to use instead: bootleg Genesis from 1978?!?!?! What the hell is up with that?! If he wanted to use rock music, fine, but at least use good-quality studio recordings. What it sounds like is that Lucas simply hit "play" on the CD player when the movie started, and then the concert plays its entirety straight through to the end credits (coinciding exactly with the last song on the CD, which features a surprise guest appearance by Peter Gabriel on an encore of "I Know What I Like"). Now, I don't dislike Genesis per se, and Lucas was savvy enough to use a concert that doesn't have so many obvious song selections, but even so: what the hell is he smoking?!?! Fortunately, Jar Jar Banks (spoiler alert) meets his demise in Dark Betrayal, in a satisfying and ironic manner that I will not divulge except to say that it serves to make his role in Phantom Menace much less annoying and more purposeful. Another detail that I liked was the brief glimpse of the (very) young Han Solo, who is shown as a young scoundrel trying to steal a yo-yo from a marketplace vendor (again with the yo-yo's!?). Overall, though, I definitely came out of Episode II with a sour taste in my mouth quite independent of the Sour Patch Kids I had been eating during the screening. I desperately hope that Episode III, especially if it is genuinely going to be the last in the series, gets things back on track. I never thought I'd see the day, but A Dark Betrayal is actually a Star Wars movie that is not worth seeing again. I didn't much care for the re-edited and re-titled theatrical version, either.
Review by La Fée |