A few excerpts from the New York Times review of Attack of the Clones. Hold on to your hats for the paragraphs that follow. From NYtimes.com:

Kicking Up Cosmic Dust
By A. O. SCOTT

AFTER sitting through "Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones," I'm tempted to quote an evergreen Public Enemy song: don't believe the hype. But really, belief is beside the point. The promotional machinery around the "Star Wars" franchise exists beyond fervor or skepticism; it is a fact of life. When the fifth installment in George Lucas's pop-Wagnerian cycle opens nationally on Thursday (after being shown at the first TriBeCa Film Festival on Sunday afternoon), the event will have all the spontaneity and surprise of an election day in the old Soviet Union.

Like weary Brezhnev-era Muscovites, the American moviegoing public will line up out of habit and compulsion, ruefully hoping that this episode will at least be a little better than the last one, and perhaps inwardly suspecting that the whole elephantine system is rotten. Even the true believers camped out on the sidewalks with their toy light sabers (or the ones at the screening I attended who burst into applause at the appearance of the 20th Century Fox and Lucasfilm company logos) seem more dutiful than enthusiastic.

Already I can hear the equally habitual murmurs of protest: Oh, come on, lighten up! It's only a movie.

Well, for one thing, given the scale and expense (reportedly $140 million) of the enterprise, not to mention its ability to command the money and attention of audiences around the world, there's nothing "only" about it. And for another, while "Attack of the Clones" is many things - a two-hour-and-12-minute action-figure commercial, a demo reel heralding the latest advances in digital filmmaking, a chance for gifted actors to be handsomely paid for delivering the worst line readings of their careers - it is not really much of a movie at all, if by movie you mean a work of visual storytelling about the dramatic actions of a group of interesting characters.

For the full review, hit the link above. Thanks to petr1229 for the heads up.