CinemaNow - Star Wars: The Clone Wars

With each new release of a Star Wars movie, the reviews grow harsher. The animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars is being shot down by critics as if it were a target in a video game -- with which it is being compared. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times says that producer George Lucas has reduced the franchise "to the level of Saturday-morning animation." It is, he writes, "a deadening film that cuts corners on its animation and slumbers through a plot that (a) makes us feel like we''''ve seen it all before, and (b) makes us wish we hadn''''t." Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News regards the film as "the latest indignity" to Star Wars fans. Linda Barnard in the Toronto Star comments that Lucas has "whored out the much-loved Star Wars saga." And while some critics suggest that small children may enjoy the film, Jason Anderson in the Toronto Globe & Mail warns, "parents may be perturbed by the film''''s relentless violence." But Nathan Lee actually gives the movie a left-handed compliment in the New York Times, writing that it "comes as something of a surprise: it isn''''t the most painful movie of the year!" Likewise Roger Moore in the Orlando Sentinel writes that it is "actually better than expected." And writing in the Los Angeles Times, Michael Ordo?a grants that "there''''s knockout animation, facsimiles of popular characters and plenty of action. But anyone older than 8 with the majority of brain functions intact will have a bad feeling about this."