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Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Warner Bros. Pictures

Star Wars: The Clone Wars reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 35 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
5.2 out of 10
based on 30 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 98 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG for sci-fi action violence throughout, brief language and momentary smoking

Starring Matt Lanter, Ian Abercrombie, Anthony Daniels, Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Kane, Matthew Wood, James Arnold Taylor, and Christopher Lee

Star Wars takes on a dazzling new look in the first-ever animated feature from Lucasfilm Animation - Star Wars: The Clone Wars. As the Clone Wars sweep through the galaxy, the heroic Jedi Knights struggle to maintain order and restore peace. More and more systems are falling prey to the forces of the dark side as the Galactic Republic slips further and further under the sway of the Separatists and their never-ending droid army. Anakin Skywalker and his Padawan learner Ahsoka Tano find themselves on a mission with far-reaching consequences, one that brings them face-to-face with crime lord Jabba the Hutt. But Count Dooku and his sinister agents, including the nefarious Asajj Ventress, will stop at nothing to ensure that Anakin and Ahsoka fail at their quest. Meanwhile, on the front lines of the Clone Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Master Yoda lead the massive clone army in a valiant effort to resist the forces of the dark side ... (Warner Bros.)


GENRE(S): Action  |  Adventure  |  Animation  |  Sci-fi  
WRITTEN BY: George Lucas (story)
Steven Melching
Scott Murphy
Henry Gilroy
 
DIRECTED BY: Dave Filoni  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: November 11, 2008 
Theatrical: August 15, 2008 
RUNNING TIME: 98 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA | Singapore 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

67
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
It's not exactly thrilling, and it doesn't cover much new ground. But young audiences will lap it up like ice cream.
Read Full Review
60
Empire James Dyer
An enjoyable escapade and a great introduction to the forthcoming series - just not the seventh Star Wars film fans were hoping for.
Read Full Review
58
The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson
With its simple-goal-driven plot, its wordy, cutscene-like interludes, and its stiffly modeled characters, it wouldn't even make for a particularly high-end videogame.
Read Full Review
50
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
When George Lucas last pulled off an original idea for a feature film, Bill Clinton was still thought of by many voters as overweight and chaste.
Read Full Review
50
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
The best that can be said about the movie is that it's harmless and mostly charmless. The Clone Wars is to Star Wars what karaoke is to pop music.
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50
The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen
The largely uninspired Clone Wars feels landlocked. In the absence of any extensive innovation, the video game-ready results play more like a feature-length promo for the imminent TV series of the same name than a stand-alone event.
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50
Variety Todd McCarthy
This isn't the Star Wars we've always known and at least sometimes loved.
Read Full Review
50
San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub
Looks fantastic, but the film suffers from the TV-to-feature transition.
Read Full Review
50
Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Gets more cluttered and confused as it moves along.
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50
ReelViews James Berardinelli
The Clone Wars is the last nail in a coffin that has been propped up ever since George Lucas sold his creative soul in the quest for a few more pieces of gold.
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50
Boston Globe Tom Russo
Once again, even reasonably committed fans will need a scorecard to keep track of who's fighting whom. What's the real target audience - i.e. kids - supposed to make of it all?
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50
New York Post Linda Stasi
Lucas' films are like Cher's face. No matter how many times you rework the same material, it's never going to be new and fresh again. And so it is with his latest, Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
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50
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Essentially an extended trailer for the 2008 Cartoon Network animated series.
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50
The New York Times Nathan Lee
As a mechanical thrill ride, The Clone Wars has an uncluttered look and furious pace that make it more or less as satisfying as its wildly overdesigned predecessors.
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42
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
It might be impressive as a made-for-DVD production, but coming from producer George Lucas, it makes for a cheap excuse for a big-screen spectacle.
Read Full Review
42
Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
Unlike its predecessors, this one doesn't even try to aspire to myth. It aspires only to merchandising.
Read Full Review
40
LA Weekly Robert Wilonsky
The Clone Wars is minor to the point of irrelevance, nothing more than a stylized direct-to-DVD shrug projected onto a big screen while Lucas launches two more TV series filling in prequel blanks better left empty.
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40
Los Angeles Times Michael Ordona
Despite some absolutely gorgeous animation and adjusting expectations for what Clone Wars is meant to be, the Force is not strong with this one.
Read Full Review
38
USA Today Claudia Puig
Don't expect the seventh Star Wars film here. Star Wars: The Clone Wars is more like a long Saturday morning cartoon.
Read Full Review
38
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Basically just a 98-minute trailer for the autumn launch of a new series on the Cartoon Network.
Read Full Review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jason Anderson
While the movie and the accompanying series are being pitched to a younger audience than most new Star Wars ventures, parents may be perturbed by the film's relentless violence.
Read Full Review
33
Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
The animated characters in "Clone Wars" are about as lively as the actors in the live-action movies, so I guess Lucas has achieved his goal of eliminating humans from his movies altogether.
Read Full Review
30
Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar
The whole thing feels like a continuation of Lucas' experiments to see how much sh-- his dwindling supporters will take before finally saying "enough" and moving on to adult pursuits.
Read Full Review
30
Wall Street Journal Joanne Kaufman
Clone Wars will appeal only to the most tolerant, galactically minded children and their parents.
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30
Washington Post Hank Stuever
Unfolds with all the entertainment value of watching somebody else play a video game.
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25
Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
At what point might animators be arrested for doing work so ugly it causes aesthetic blindness in millions of younglings?
Read Full Review
20
Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt
Story is entirely insignificant in The Clone Wars.
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20
Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Without the grandiose narrative structure of the six live-action releases, this feels even more pointless, a mechanical attempt to milk the kids for every last dime.
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20
New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
The latest indignity.
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0
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
George Lucas is turning into the enemy of fun.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 5.2 (out of 10) based on 98 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jay H. gave it a3:
I did not find much of this movie interesting at all and frequently found myself bored. The animation was unimpressive, as are the voice overs. Ho hum.

Coal B. gave it a0:
I am a religious star wars fan and this film is blasphemy. I can't believe Lucas let this happen. Star Wars is not fucking funny, it's not a f*cking comedy, this is serious shit and I piss on this movie.

Eric P gave it a4:
I really wanted to try and like this movie, but it just wasn't that good. The script got a little silly at times with the forced puns, idiotic dialogue, terrible rants and obvious errors (Anakin is not a Master, for starters) which took away from the movie. The fight scenes, while few and far between, were not bad. I actually didn't have a problem with the animation style. It would have been nice to have more of the actors from the movies reprise their roles, but the fill-ins did an ok job. Overall, the movie just felt like a 90 minute trailer for the series due out this fall. It probably isn't worth your money, unless you're a hard-core Star Wars fan, or all the other movies left are chick flicks or terrible comedies.

Mike G. gave it a4:
An ok movie for the young, I don't like skywalker, george lucas should have left winey jedi out of the order, anikin could still have turned to the dark side, but been more of a pleasure to watch as a jedi and the same for his supposed padawan that doesn't really fit the star wars universe. get someone else to make another real acting star wars trilogy.

Richie R. gave it a1:
Ok I see people saying that the animated characters seemed stiff and square and well was that so different from the rest of the star wars prequel acting? The movie seemed ok but not as fantastic as the movies that made the star wars franchise so popular (IV, V, VI). I give it one star for the efforts on the animation other from that *yawn* nothing special. The star wars stories are getting too drawn out with less appeal as it carries on (theatrically).

maw gave it a4:
It didn't even try to be a movie. It was content in being an overlong animated TV cartoon. Come to think of it, I would enjoy KOTOR's cutscenes put together than this movie. The fact that it was targeted for kids doesn't excuse the simplified plot. Shrek was 10 times more enjoyable than this, if they can pull it off, why can't the Star Wars franchise do the same?

DecepticonPom gave it a5:
Looks great, but not as good as Episodes I-III, but lack of original voice talent, too much foppish dialogue and a not completely engaging plot make for a hollowingly disappointing experience. Oh, and no crawling intro-text renegades it from being a 'proper' Star Wars experience right from the get-go.

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