I took my children to see Star Wars: The Clone Wars last week. They enjoyed it a lot. I have mixed feelings. The plot is fairly straight-foward: Jabba asks the Jedi to find out who kidnapped Jabba's son, retrieve the huttlet from them and return him to Jabba. In exchange, Jabba will allow Republic forces to use Hutt spacelanes to take the battle against the Sepratists into the Outer Rim. But, time is short and the Sepratists will attempt to discredit the Jedi and turn Jabba against the Republic.

The type of computer animation chosen by Lucasfilm works very well for the action sequences, and there are plenty of those. Also, I don't mind the angular chins of the characters. The cast does a good job with the voices of Christopher Lee (Count Dooku), Samuel L. Jackson (Mace Windu), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO) reprising the roles they made famous. Also newcomers Matt Lanter (Anakin), James Arnold Taylor (Obi-Wan), Tom Kane (Yoda), Nika Futterman (Asajj Ventress), Ashley Eckstein (Ahsoka Tano), Catherine Taber (Padme), and Ian Abercombie (Palpatine) do a wonderful job with their characters. In fact, Taylor sounds almost exactly like Ewan McGregor!

There are also a few nice character touches such as a Clone Trooper calling for a medic, Obi-Wan stalling by discussing surrender terms with a Sepratist Commander, and Anakin's dislike of Hutts in general. Ahsoka's style of holding a lightsaber is unique. I also liked the references to other parts of the saga. The Republic taking the battle to the Outer Rim has reference to the "Outer Rim sieges" line spoken by Anakin. And, even though Dooku's lying through his teeth when he tells Jabba that the Jedi are coming to destroy Jabba, those words prove prophetic about a quarter of century later.

Unfortunately, the style of animation Lucasfilm chose doesn't translate well to the movie screen. And Jackson, Taber, and Daniels have very little to do. Ahsoka gets no character development. A scene could easily have been inserted where Ahsoka mentions to Anakin who found her and admited her to the Jedi Temple. And will someone please tell me why Jabba's uncle speaks basic? There also seems to be a discontinuity error. Asajj Ventress gave Anakin his scar in the comic Dreadnoughts of of Rendili. In that same comic, Anakin thinks he kills Asajj Ventress. Yet, in The Clone Wars Anakin shows no surprise that she's alive. The soft-rock style soundtrack and a narrator are a bit grating, since we've come to expect orchestral scores and an opening crawl from a Star Wars film.

In the end, the film works better if you think of it as a pilot episode for the upcoming television series. The Clone Wars should have been a made-for-tv pilot episode instead of a theatrical film. As such, you're better off waiting for it to appear on DVD than see it in the theater. Final rating: **1/2 (out of a scale of 0-4 stars)