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Don’t say there’s no such thing as bad publicity because the heaps of bad reviews have kept us away from this one until now. 

Star Wars: The Clone Wars tries so hard to emulate the effortless cool of Samurai Jack creator Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars animated series from 2003. It really tries and some time to time it does succeed but it never feels like Star Wars. 

Some of the negative reviews use adjectives ranging from “disappointing” to “downright terrible,” and one even calls it, “the first Star Wars film you’ll actively hate, not just be disappointed in.”

It’s fashionable now to bash George Lucas and since he executive produced the film, it’s easy to see why many critics hopped on the bandwagon. Hyperbole is rampant in a lot of reviews and it’s understandable, to an extent.

To be honest, all that bad press and terrible publicity this is almost a saving grace. Almost.  It lowers expectations just enough to make it half-way enjoyable, half the time.

Waiting outside a theater on opening night would have been world-crushingly disappointing, seeing it unaware of the negative press would have been a maddening let-down.

Going in knowing people think it’s awful and that you shouldn’t expect much sets it up for pleasing a couple of times and the characters aren’t nearly as grating and annoying as they might have been otherwise. 

Honestly having an Anakin that actually emotes is a fresh change from Hayden Christensen’s universally acknowledged stale-at-best performance in Episodes II and III. His new Padawan Ahsoka ranges from a level of annoying Hayden reached in Episode II to tolerable. She does her job well though, blunting Anakin’s annoying tendencies by accentuating her own. 

James Arnold Taylor sounds just like Ewan McGreggor and Christopher Lee, Samuel L. Jackson both reprised their film roles and did some very good work, but what else would we expect from them? 

The animation is frighteningly uneven at times. The ship battles, space shots and planet-wide vistas of Coruscant look like they were taken from the films themselves as do many of the backgrounds. Some ships and fighters look even better than the stuff we saw in Episode II.

On close-up many of the textures look like paintings and the lips seem out of sync at almost every line. The attempt to replicate Tartakovsky’s art style works half the time and falls flat on its face the other half, when it succeeds it’s decent, but when it falls it falls hard. Very, very hard. 

When the camera shoots from a distance or a high-action scene crops up, it’s difficult to pick out the flaws and things are fantastic and a joy to watch. Lightsaber fights are fast-paced and fun, battles are fun and explosions match the art style well.

The opening sequence, involving a shield generator and Clone-on-droid combat, is well written, tense at moments and has some well-timed pieces of comic relief that make it seem like a different film than the find/chase/save/kill the baby Hutt (yes, baby Hutt) battles and fights that follow.

The entire second-half feels like it drags. 

It’s nice to see Asajj Ventress (one of the coolest villains Star Wars has put out since Vader himself) show up again and cross swords with Obi-Wan, but it’s the scant highlight of an otherwise downhill ride from the initial battle. 

It introduces Ziro the Hutt, possibly the weirdest character ever. The film could have done without him, but his off-colour voice and garb (as well as speaking English) didn’t ruin the film on its own, like some critics suggest. Anyone who would prefer Jar-Jar Binks’ presence over Ziro’s is clearly off their rocker. 

Another terrible shame is the music. Star Wars has always been known for its brilliantly paced music, from the heroic rebel theme to the brilliantly evil pomp of the Imperial march, but there’s almost none of it here and the opening crawl is replaced by a jingoistic announcer who sounds like he should be narrating a 50’s infomercial.

It just never manages to feel like Star Wars. 

Ultimately, there are some outstanding bits of artistry in The Clone Wars. There’s a bit too much comic relief, but hey, it’s for kids. It’s hampered mostly by its lack of consistency and could at best be described as a let-down, but it’s not all bad. Those wanting to while away a sleepy afternoon or connect with their kids on some common ground might well enjoy it. 

If absolutely nothing else, it has more than enough lightsaber noises to keep you going until The Force Unleashed is released.