Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Blu-ray Disc, 2008, 2 Disc Set)

The film opens without the traditional scrolling prologue and is replaced by a transatlantic voice that would have been at home in a 1980's Saturday morning cartoon. From here we are thrown into episode 2.5 of the Star War saga. Without giving too much away about the plot: the acting and characters are wooden and two dimensional, even for a kids film (or for that matter a recent Star Wars film). The dynamic between Anakin Skywalker and his new sidekick, will grate on the nerves of anyone over the age of 8 years old. The stiff animation makes everyone come across as a cross between an action figure and a Thunderbird. Another problem is for a theatrically released film, it's "shot" (if you can call it that) in an almost camera-nailed-to-the-ground fashion. Compared to recent Pixar efforts, it looks about as cinematic as a midday tele-movie. The saving grace of this film are the fight scenes, which somewhat make up for the film failings everywhere else.

As a spin off from the Star Wars franchise it's OK at best, as a kids film there's much better, as a pilot episode to the upcoming cartoon series it's watchable and if compared to a direct to DVD Disney sequel, it's decent.