STAR WARS III: REVENGE OF THE SITH

By James

 

 

As I piled into the cinema with my dad, my brother and anywhere between one and two hundred sweaty Star Wars die-hards, who had enough metal around their eyes and in their mouth to build a small city, I took my seat and mused on what I was about to see.

I hated the earlier two prequels and despite appreciating the importance of the original holy trinity, I couldn't see them in the same perfect light that the true fans did. Mark Hammill had the acting ability of a milkshake, Princess Leia was a serious eye-sore and even Harrison Ford conceded that he couldn't bare to watch his performances.

So as I sat waiting for the film to start in a room with more virgins than I have ever seen in my life, any expectations I had were scraping rock bottom.

What does Master Yoda look like?.... DOES HE LOOK LIKE A BITCH?

There was the fantastic trailer to think about, but if The Day After Tomorrow taught me anything, it was that yes, the heat from a grill in Wendy's can save you from sub 10,000 degrees temperatures and no, good trailer usually does not equate to good movie.

Revenge of the Sith started out where it meant to continue, and you can learn everything you need to know within about fifteen minutes of the film's opening.

Right from the get-go, three things are abundantly clear:

1. The action is not in any way exciting.
2. The dialogue sucks.
3. The music is still pure genius, despite the same soundtrack being recycled for the sixth straight movie.

We also find that Hayden Christiansen still can't accurately portray emotion, but we learnt that in Attack of the Clones, so we won't linger on it for too long.

If for any moment you thought that after the eye rapage that was Attack of the Clones, that maybe George Lucas had learnt how to write romantic dialogue, or direct a touching scene that didn't feature the mass genocide of the Jedi, well then my friend you've been sadly mistaken.

I don't even understand how someone can fuck up something as simpleand potentially poignant as Anakin and Padme's meeting after the attack on General Grevious. But you can rest assured, Lucas did it.


Not even Yoda could save Revenge of the Sith

The acting was wooden, and when I say the acting, I mean Hayden Christiansen and when I say wooden, I really mean utter shit.

Natalie "Gudjesus she's hot" Portman struggled with truly awful dialogue, but as everyone knows, it doesn't really matter because the movie's all about Christiansen anyway, despite the best efforts of Sam Jackson who has one of the harshest cinema deaths ever, but just ends up being the lamest and most boring of the ridiculously clueless Jedi council.

But like I said, it's all about Anakin, who after professing his genuine love and respect for Kenobi and all things Jedi, joins the dark-side over the space of about 48 hours. I mean, Michael Schumacher has taken turns slower for Christ's sake.

The guy gets spooked out about a premonition he has and Palpatine uses that coupled with the Jedi Council's distrust for him, to turn him to his evil ways. The whole thing just happens so ridiculously fast that you start to wonder whether or not it wasn't only Jedis who had the mind tricks:

Palpatine: What do you think about the Sith?
Skywalker: They're evil.
Palpatine: I'm the Sith Lord you know...
Skywalker: I must tell master Yoda!
Palpatine: How about you join me instead?
Skywalker: No way! I'm Jedi for life!
Palpatine: You should join me.
Skywalker: Maybe I should.

Seriously, I mean the guy's loved the entire Jedi way for god knows how long and in the space of a couple of days, Palpatine, someone who BLATANTLY cannot be trusted turns him way too easy. I mean you find out the guys a Sith LORD for god's sakes the first thing you don't do is listen to whatever bullshit comes out of his mouth. As if if he told you he could prolong life in unnatural ways you wouldn't first say "Okay, wait a minute...."


You can tell he's turning evil, he has the red contacts.

No, no Anakin's first reaction was "AWESOME. You teach me that, and I'll go slay some children."

Okay, I'll move past that and I'll give credit where I really feel it's due. I'm honestly not just ragging on the movie for the sake of it and because I hate Star Wars films and resent the way they've floated to the top of pop-culture by way of some unforseen phenomenon. Although that's true, I will be the first to admit that some parts of the film really blew me away.

About forty minutes before the end, the film really takes a huge turn for the better.

Suddenly the action is fantastic as we get two beautiful fight scenes, between Darth Sidious and Yoda on one side, and then between Darth Vader and Kenobi on the other. The action in these two fights are exactly what the others should have been, I don't know, I just don't buy the fact that the Jedi could wip the droids' asses, it just undermined everything. There are so many scenes where there were like fifty droids surrounding just Anakin and Kenobi, yet they'd come out not only un-harmed, but having massacred every single one of them. It's just stupid. Why have the fucking droids in the first place.

It's not only that though, but in scenes like where Anakin and Kenobi fight Dooku at the start, the moves are so damn slow, it's ridiculous, there's no sense of urgency or excitement, look at something like Hero or even The Matrix, the hits are hard and fast, and it's just so totally the way to go.


MONEY SHOT. As much as I hated the film, I couldn't help but ALMOST WET MYSELF.

Anyway yeah for a short period, the film goes some way to redeeming itself, in the form of killing of the Jedi and then having those two aforementioned battles rage.

Shortly after the two fights end, it's time to tie up all the loose ends to ensure a smooth transition into Episode IV, and then things get all stupid again.

Turns out Amidala is dying, in fact one of the machines comes out and says that she's lost the will to live. I wonder which machine surmised that? Fortunately though, she still has enough life in her to name the children. And wait a minute, she died simply because she lost the will to live? Moment to laugh at that please...

Even the fucking money shot of Darth Vader getting his mask put on, which did give me a huge tingle up my spine, but was completely fucked up when Vader staggers out of the chair and Frankensteins his way forward screaming NOOOOOO.

Anyway, I'll leave it there.

Infinitely better than the first prequels, but still in no way a great movie.

5 out of 10