Three things need to be said right off the bat about George Lucas' latest installment of the Star Wars' saga. First, Attack of the Clones is a lot better-and a lot more fun-than The Phantom Menace. Second, the annoying Jar Jar Binks is relegated to less than five minutes of screen time (thank goodness). And third, Yoda FINALLY gets to kick some ass!

As we join the action ten years on from events covered in Phantom Menace, young Jedi apprentice Anakin Skywalker (Vancouverite Hayden Christensen, who delivers far too much of his dialogue with the dull cadences of a West Coast snowboarder) and his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) are assigned to protect Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman), formerly the Queen of Naboo and now an important senator targeted for assassination. The Republic is again under threat-this time from a separatist movement made up of corporations and distant planets, and the threat is too large for the Jedi knights to handle alone. Hence, the decision to fashion an army to defend the republic. In short order, Yoda is pronouncing, "Begun, the clone war has..." And so has the romance between Anakin and Padme.

The stilted dialogue, bad acting and near-incomprehensible plot (I imagine that Star Wars' aficionados, of which I am not one, will be able to follow everything just fine) give much of the early stages of the film the feel of a B-movie serial, which is not necessarily a negative thing. These aspects of the film are completely subservient to the film's raison d'etre, which is, of course, the special effects and the-admittedly quite awesome-set pieces that give the movie its narrative juice. An early jet-car scene wherein Obi-Wan and Anakin chase a would-be assassin through the teaming planet-city is eye-popping thanks to the computerized detail and fast-paced editing on display. A later scene in which our three heroes are tied up in a gladiatorial ring and threatened by monsters (not to mention an army of thousands), only to be rescued by hundreds of Jedi knights, is both spectacular and a nudge to Ridley Scott's inferior computerized design in Gladiator.

But the centrepiece of the adventure aspect of Star Wars has always been the good old light-sabre duel. Lucas seems to have realized that because there are a couple of pulse-quickening, positively stroboscopic encounters here. The most satisfying of these is Yoda's duel with the evil Jedi master Count Dooku (Christopher Lee, who seems to have cornered the market on bad guys in fantasy blockbusters-his last role was the evil wizard Saruman in Lord of the Rings). Dooku has already easily dealt with Obi-Wan and Anakin, leaving them both injured, when Yoda strikes a kung fu pose and leaps into action. It's funny and thrilling at the same time.

This being the installment prior to the one in which Darth Vader is created, much of the film lays the groundwork for how the idealistic Anakin will eventually transform into the evil Jedi. At one point Anakin remarks that a dictatorship might not be such a bad thing (I beg your pardon?) and later he slaughters a whole tribe of baddies, including women and children, responsible for the death of his mother. This trend is really the only character development on display in the whole movie, but as Yoda might say, "Character, the movie's not about..."