Frist off, I'm amazed to find an almost complete lack of threads relating to star wars. There really has been a lot less hype for Ep2.

Anyway, on with my Cynical Bastard™ review of the film. Story-wise, it was definately much better than episode one, although much of the foreshadowing wasn't done very well (good foreshadowing needs to be more subtle, not something the drunk guy in the back can understand completely). One the plus side, those of you going for the eye-candy won't be disappointed. The battle scenes are quite impressive and extensive, and there is plenty of lightsabre action. The flying scenes also looked great.

But just when you start to enjoy the movie, anakin opens his mouth. Some say you shouldn't critisize something unless you can do better, but in this case, probably just about anyone with a little acting experience could do better than him. His dialogue often comes out as sounding fake and insincere. Speaking of which, some of the dialogue was horrible. Watching the scenes with Amidala and Anakin is almost painful...they have absolutely no chemistry onscreen at all. I can't really think of an A&A scene that went well.

That aside, the movie was decent. Although perhaps delivered poorly in some places, the plot was interesting, and the special effects and action sequences make me feel that I got my moneys worth out of my ticket (matinee)
Spoiler: One neat thing is that I didn't quite know who I wanted to win during the final battle sequence, knowing that those clones would be used against the republic eventually