Don't go see this expecting a movie; you'll be disappointed.

Instead, it's best to approach it for what it is - a movie-length plug for the forthcoming TV cartoon series of the same name, both of which are Leg 1aimed squarely at kids.

That way you won't be disappointed with animation that looks like you're watching someone play a video game, the uninspiring storyline and the reams of stilted dialogue.

You also won't spend the first half hour of the film radically downgrading your expectations, though when I did that, I realised the film wasn't all bad. At least the plot is better than the three Star Wars prequels, by virtue of being shorter and less convoluted.

Unlike the prequels, you can sum up the plot of The Clone Wars in a single sentence. Anakin Skywalker (Lanter) and his Jedi apprentice Ahsoka Tano (Eckstein) have to save Jabba the Hut's kid to foil the Leg 2bad guys' plans.

It's Tano's presence and her relationship to Skywalker that offer the best evidence that this is all for the kiddies. It's as though the writers watched some popular Disney channel sitcoms and based Tano on the female characters. She's hip, wears cool clothes, is cheeky and has a snappy comeback for every occasion. She's so sassy, she quickly starts referring to Skywalker as ``Skyguy'' (and he responds by calling her ``Snips''). Isn't that adorable?

In a narrative sense, this film is supposed to fit between Episodes II and III and includes a number of characters from those films. That sucks away much of the suspense because you know which characters Leg 3have to survive to appear in Episode III. It's hard to muster any enthusiasm for a showdown between Count Dooku (Christopher Lee) and Skywalker when you know neither of them will come to harm.

That's more than I can say for George Lucas' legacy, to which he seems intent on doing irreparable harm. In the first trilogy, he created three great films but he couldn't leave well enough alone. He went back and added unnecessary special effects to those films, then made three irritating prequels and now has foisted The Clone Wars upon us.

Please, someone make him stop.