Agent Spalko
Guest
It's not just the sight of familiar characters now rendered in CGI to resemble caricatured and very springy puppets that feels so wrong. The story here lacks the epic sweep that's always made the saga such a winning formula.
In the midst of action, a reluctant Anakin is ordered to tutor student Jedi Ashoka (Eckstein), who resembles an orange-skinned Christina Aguilera wearing the back end of a pantomime zebra as a hair-do. In fairness the teasing, squabbling and wisecracks going on between the duo are a great deal more convincing than the notoriously wooden romance of Anakin and Padme in the live action prequels, but the tone is firmly aimed at a pre-teen audience. No one's denying that Star Wars was made with children in mind, but the goofy, high school soap-style evident here merely highlights the gap between Star Wars: The Clone Wars and its predecessors.
It also needs to be said that as spectacle the film fares badly compared to the previous 'Clone Wars' TV series, broadcast between 2003-5. These short and frantic adventures boasted great design work from Genndy Tartakovski and, as traditionally animated cartoons, were free to tell their stories in a far more colourful, striking and dramatic fashion, fully exploiting the medium's strengths.
I guess if you're a 5 year kid easily wowed by a flamboyant palette of psychedelic day-glo colors awash with no comprehension of logistical narrative structure and stringy wooden charicature puppets like the proud peacock is then this is the perfect movie for you.