Overall Rating
  Awesome: 40.98%
Worth A Look: 23.14%
Average: 13.16%
Pretty Bad: 9.55%
Total Crap: 13.16%
23 reviews, 333 user ratings
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| Star Wars: Episode 3 - Revenge of the Sith |
by Marc Kandel
"'Luminous beings were they. Not this crude matter'"
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At the end of it all, I find I equate the new Star Wars trilogy to the old Sex/Pizza analogy. Then again, I’ve had some real shitty pizza in my time… I am at once slavish fanboy and disappointed, irritated audience member.This final entry in the new trilogy left me feeling very, very sad and profoundly disturbed. And that might be a good thing, were I lamenting the fate of Anakin, Padme, Ben, hell, even fucking Jar-Jar (assuming I could bear witness to a degrading, wailing, drowned-in-his-own-space-feces demise- “Gublglub..AAAAHHHGLuBBLGLUB..Meesa can taste my liver! Aaaaah! How Ruuuuuuude AHHhHHblubglubglubglub-NO MORE CORNGLUBglubglub…”). But alas, I was instead truly hurt that a film that had so much going for it, did so many things so right, did so many things I could appreciate as a SW fan, still let me down through bungled execution and sloppy misfires during pivotal events.
I want to be fair. I wanted to like this film. And I saw lots of things I liked, loved even, and again, lots of things I really, really needed to see both as a fan and an enthusiastic movie-lover. But all of these moments, all of the magic was submerged by clumsy presentation choices; key moments and scenes that hit the mark story-wise only to draw inappropriate laughter and sighs from an audience that should have been captivated and awestruck. Everybody knows what’s going to happen in this final picture from youngest first grader to eldest senior out with his great-grandkids - so the trick is making it happen in a fashion that prickles the neck and makes the body lean forward in anticipation. Not enough of that going on here. It’s like hearing a truly magnificent musical composition played by a fourth grade intermediate band.
So lets go to my biggest problem with the whole thing: Anakin turns evil- Reeeeally evil. To the point of turning the force on his wife and best friend, killing Jedis, butchering little kids evil…
…with virtually no believable motivation. Our buddy Anakin is a pretty touchy lad, I tell ya. By this film’s logic, I could have walked up to “nice” Anakin, cut a rich ripe fart in front of him, and that would have been enough to unleash the beast- that’s about all the motivation this Skywalker needs, and less than he gets. Now I’m all for butchering little kids, but hell, I at least need a reasonable impetus to do it. He had bad dreams. Wah. My pussy hurts. Fag.
Instead of this stupid intangible “Phantom Menace” pretty much grabbed out of thin air, make the problem tangible- Star Wars never built up Darth Vader’s former life as some great romance story- why treat it that way? Han and Leia is as close as it gets- so why even try to make this a perfect marriage? I never bought the Padme/Anakin relationship past Episode One- It should have been portrayed as a mistake, a lapse in judgment rather than Romeo and Juliet or Heathcliff and Catherine. Hey, Padme can get horny sometimes too, right? So why not make it a regretful, uncomfortable, ONE-SIDED union (like it wasn’t already with the wooden dialogue), pushed over the edge by Anakin’s continuing spiral of poor decisions, instability, and creepy infatuation with his former babysitter? And hey, if you think that’s uncomfortable subject matter, let me again reference the kiddie slaughter that occurs in this film. There’s enough meat in the aforementioned suggestion to justify much of Anakin’s troubles and temptations- his inability to advance within the Jedi ranks, discomfort with the council, strained friendship with Ben, sympathy and support coming solely from Palpatine… need I go on? Why invent another plot device when there is plenty to be mined from what has come before?
Another part of the problem is that the build-up over the course of these films of Anakin’s descent into darkness is weak. Terrible things occur throughout Anakin’s life, shaping his destiny, but none of them have much in the way of a through-line over the three films. His butchery of the Sand People in “Attack of the Clones” barely rates a sentence in this film- it should have been a pivotal moment, continually unnerving to Padme despite her attraction and a key moment for Palpatine to really drive his way into Anakin’s soul. The audience should have seen the confession to Palpatine in “Clones” creating a more lengthy history of the issue rather than quick expository dialogue. More importantly, this darkness, fear and anger should have manifested itself in Episode One. A perfect moment would have been when Anakin flew his fighter into the Droid Shield Complex and was surrounded- to a little kid out of his element, that would have been pretty frightening- this was a bit more serious than a Pod Race- Mom’s gone, Quai-Gon’s dead, R2 is useless and he’s surrounded by guns pointed at him... Nothing like a nice Dark Side of the Force push tearing everything up to clean up that problem amid screaming for help- instead it was played for laughs and shown to be a lucky accident. Great pilot my ass. Another missed opportunity. Its funny, you can’t help but criticize the other films while looking at this one- they are not the building blocks for each other they need to be to have a cohesive trilogy.
I don’t think it’s a lot to ask that the actions on screen have sensible motivations, or that the moments that have to happen based on the original films are addressed not as a checklist, but as serious, momentous occasions each and every one. And I say yet again- the film succeeds at more than a few quite admirably- the defeat of Count Shit (I just can’t call him Dooku and neither should you), the revealing and scarring of Palpatine, the betrayal of the Jedi by the clone army, the face-off between the Palpatine and Yoda as they tear apart the physical manifestation of the Republic even after a stupid coronation that basically has the galaxy responding with canned Monty Python applause to each of the Emperor’s pronouncements (“…and there was much rejoicing…”- how can a film simultaneously be this clever and this idiotic? HOW?), the duel between Kenobi and Vader and its aftermath, The birth of the twins and their split adoptions by the Organa and Lars families- these are just about as perfect as perfect can be.
But the lever that spurs all of these things on, namely Anakin’s turning, is such a false note, that it sends waves of discord over even the strongest moments. And the first appearance of a fully realized Darth Vader… How stupid do you have to be to screw that up? Yet it happens- I heard far too many chuckles and groans to tell me that was any kind of successful introduction. And that moment has some chilling dialogue- the first time we hear Vader’s voice- it’s a gentle inquiry about his wife- its haunting, sad, effective, but its also proceeded by clumsy slapstick. You want to conjure visions of Frankenstein, fine- you had done it just by showing a monster strapped to a vertical table. But in the end, Darth Vader is still not the Frankenstein’s monster- he’s a legend in his own right- any common sense might tell you that having him stumble around and screaming (or at least in the way Lucas chooses to do it) is not going to make the impression on the audience you want it to. Have the Emperor help him off the table and support him with dignity. Have the Emperor break the news- be it manipulation or not. Have Vader scream- not NOOOO, but a rage, sorrow-choked scream as his immense power rips apart the medical room and sends the Emperor fleeing for cover even as he chortles at his triumph- a shadow of things to come. Then have Vader slump to the floor, and perhaps a soft hoarse “no.” Why not give the audience a tapestry of rage and grief rather than melodrama? Why can I see it so clearly and the filmmakers can’t? It really hurt to see that moment wasted and ineffectual- particularly when moments later we have a beautiful, meaningful shot of Owen and Beru staring off into the Dune Sea and the twin suns, holding a baby that will grow up and one day look off into that same view with hope, longing and sadness- much the same way I felt through this film.
So am I a nitpicking geek? Expecting too much from what amounts to a glorified cartoon? Living in the past? Ungrateful? Ridiculous? No. No, I don’t think so. I think I’m a reasonable guy who didn’t get the most out of a movie that could have offered more and made some poor choices, despite making very good choices elsewhere- if the whole thing had sucked, I might be less depressed- after all, that’s what I went in expecting based on the other two- but there were moments of inspiration and moments of joy- just hardly any moments that captured that special magic that fills, surrounds and permeates the world of Star Wars- at least the world we once knew.
And now it’s over. Unless you pop in the original movies that is, which is exactly what I did when I got home.Wonderful iconic moments vs. a silly, marginally entertaining movie in a fight to the finish; Toys R’ Us wins. [i]And that is why you fail.[i/]
 del.icio.us 
link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=12284&reviewer=358
originally posted: 06/24/05 07:58:26
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USA
19-May-2005 (PG-13)
DVD: 01-Nov-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
19-May-2005
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