This is a film of not unpleasant empty calories. That sounds harsher than I intend. I would not necessarily recommend this film, particularly to audiences over the age of 12, but it's a perfectly acceptable collection of genial, miscellaneous, weightless Star Wars marginalia. There's dog fights in space and light sabre battles and an alien macguffin to save. It's all pretty meaningless, but also inoffensive.

The film was originally intended to be four episodes of the Clone Wars television show, and it shows. It's structured like a video game, where instead of a gradually progressing narrative, each sequence feels like a "level" that the heroes have to beat before moving on to the next loosely connected set piece. The animation style fits this vibe, but does not work particularly well. There's a strange mix of the stylized and the realistic here, with exaggerated character designs for heroes and villains in intricately designed settings who move with little grace and not nearly enough heft. It's a little disorienting at times. I respect it as a stylistic choice, but the stylized elements and the realistic elements often clash, particularly with the sometimes mechanical movements of the characters, leading to a muddled aesthetic.

The story is what it is. It's a standard action adventure with little in the way of twists or thrills. It's enjoyable for what little it sets out to do, but the heart of the story - the budding friendship between Anakin and Ashoka, falls pretty flat. The thrust of it is pretty clear. Anakin's supposed to mature by having his own impulsive young Jedi trainee to look after, but the arc is rote and full of narrative shortcuts. At the same time, the story is told in clunky declarations and exposition deposits rather than the compelling character relationships that propelled the originally trilogy.

It's kids' stuff. And that's fine. It's pretty clearly meant to be. But it's also unambitious kids stuff, which makes it perfectly entertaining filler, but not worth going out of your way for or even paying particularly close attention to while you're watching it. The movie is painless enough for completionists like me, but there's nothing terribly compelling about it. Let's hope the series can do better.