The phrase wooden means (to me) anything a character does that comes accross as flat, two-dimensional. If that's so then the main protagonist, Atikin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen), is a redwood. Dear god, someone find him a non-acting job so I don't have to see his whining any more. Ewin McGregor (Obi-Won) continued to be great. Yoda was the main star, and the official star wars site confirms this with a huge pict of Yoda (Frank Oz). Natalie Portman (Padme), forget two-dimensional, she was one-dimensional.

Here's the thing though; the story was excellent. The special effects, nothing better. But basically the film tried too hard, did too much. It tried to tie in the first and last trilogy, and mostly succeeded. But by doing so anyone who's seen the last five can almost mouth along the incredibly bad dialog. Lucas is a genius story writer and special effects guy. Why he thinks he can write scripts I have no idea. Episodes 5-6 (Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi) were not scripted by him as I recall, yet they were his story.

The 'Force-ful' persona of the main characters and story end up saving the movie, which degraded to a bunch of special effects fighting scenes featuring one big character. The end result is a film that was badly fragmented and lacking cohesion. I hoped for more. Disappointed I was by the second trilogy; the only real star was Yoda. And the outcome, all but inevidible, for one strong with the Force can see through time.

Hopefully there will be more Star Wars movies; it's a very rich environment. Already a fan movie (SW:Revelations) has cropped up and isn't that bad; it was a huge and heroic undertaking by some huge, dedicated fans.

Links:

IMDB review

Official Star Wars site

SW: Revelations site