Revenge of the Sith, 2 1/2 stars
Saw the last part of the second (chronologically first) Star Wars trilogy.
And it’s pretty bad. However, it’s nowhere as bad as the two previous parts. Phantom Menace was totally void of any real sense of wonder, and introduced midichlorians and Jar-Jar Binks. For those two sins George Lucas has a lot to account for. Attack of the Clones was not much better, and featured the worst romantic subplot this side of Tom Clancy novels. Hence, the bar was pretty low for this movie.
And to be honest, it wouldn’t have cleared if it had been any higher. The characters are wooden, acting doubly so - and Lucas manages to make even Ewan McGregor and the ever-cool Samuel L. Jackson to give perplexing wooden dummy impersonations. Maybe they just loaded up on horse tranquilizers upon reading the script. After all, it worked wonders with Keith Moon. And yeah, the script sucks royally - with dialogue that would not look out of place in a Bulwer-Lytton contest.
The story has epic overtones, but the much-touted Fall of the Chosen One never really convinces. But that’s mostly due to the utter disdain to reality that the story keeps carrying on. Of course, a certain amount of suspense of disbelief is expected in a fantasy movie, but my suspenders can only take so much stress before violently snapping.
The movie is on the violent side, bloodless of course, with damage mainly confined to droid opponents. However, there’s occasional maimings and slayings of humans as well - leading to the higher than
expected rating (11 years+ in Finland). The only really disturbing images are at the very end - a well-roasted Anakin and his Vaderization and the return of Jar-Jar (fortunately silent).
However, despite the criticism, there are good aspects to the movie - space scenes are evocative, and the Coruscant background nothing short of beautiful. However, they really do not outweigh the bad parts, but make the experience reasionably painless on the eyes. And it’s weird how each planet is known by a singular feature (cold world, volcanic one, blah blah blah).
On the definitely positive side, the plot about the emperor seizing power has obvious counterparts in the current dispersal of civil rights, and this has given the bloodhounds an amusing hissy fit. Hence a bonus half-a-star.
And for a dissenting opinion, New Yorker’s Anthony Lane utterly massacres the movie in his review. And don’t forget the inspired rant
by another unsatisfied customer.
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