Review of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) by Yorkman — 30 Jun 2016

RotS is a definite improvement over the first two prequels (well, it couldn't be as bad as the epically awful AotC), but it is still a monumental disappointment.

The plot revolves around the finale of the Clone Wars, the destruction of the Jedi Order, Anakin Skywalker's reluctant embracing of the Dark Side of The Force, Obi-Wan and Yoda's forced exile, and the 'birth' of Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa.

The film ties up the relevant plot points adequately but, as a movie, it's just so incredibly lazily directed and ineptly written..... Throw in some (now expected) terrible acting, enough CGI to make you wonder why they bothered hiring any real actors at all, and it all comes together into a well organised mess.

There are some good points.... But not many. Some of the actors in the film (notably Ewan McGregor, as Obi-Wan, and Natalie Portman, as Senator Amidala) are trying to rise above the unbelievably bad script, but are simply unable to. As I mentioned in my review for AotC it's almost as if George Lucas can't imagine any actor in his film(s) being able to express the emotions of their character, so he has to actually have them say what emotional state they're in. And it's so patronising as to be borderline offensive.

Other bad things? Well, Hayden Christensen drags the movie down even more than he did in AotC, mainly because the central crux of the narrative (his 'turning' to the Dark Side) just becomes unintentionally hilarious. He isn't helped by very strange performance by Ian McDiarmid (as Palpatine/Darth Sideous) who turns the evil Sith Lord mastermind into an almost camp parody, with his vocal inflections and over the top mannerisms.

Both Christopher Lee and Sam L. Jackson are both wasted, and the less said about the terrible CGI Yoda the better.

Is there anything good? Not really.... The long awaited reveal of Darth Sideous is quite frankly lame, leading up to the duel between him and Mace Windu which is also very badly put together.

Anakin's turn to the Dark Side is cemented with his revelation 'What have I done?'... A line delivered much better (and with a lot more class and conviction) by the 'original Obi-Wan actor Alec Guinness in Bridge on the River Kwai... And even the destruction of the Jedi, the real emotional set-piece of the movie is terrible... Jesus... Having some cute, chubby kid deliver the line 'Master Skywalker, there are too many of them' before we see Anakin's 'evil' yellow eyes (which makes no sense by the way), and the inference of Anakin killing all the 'Younglings', is just ineptly done....

I could simply go on, but I won't.

The bottom line is that this film is awful but, because it's rounding off several story arcs, it has to include some narrative plot points (and some action scenes) that make it better (if that's a compliment) than the first two prequels....