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 Jason Whyte
"The critic-proof saga goes for one last ride."
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It’s somewhat amazing the level of critical and fanboy divide of the saga known as “Star Wars” and how far people will go to either praise or have vengeance over the entire series. Granted, I’m not the biggest devotee of the series but I am a fan; I was not born until 1979, so George Lucas’ space opera never really came across my path until the late 80’s when NBC aired them all on TV in the ridiculous pan-and-scan format. I then TRULY discovered the films on widescreen laserdisc a few years later and found myself engorged with the worlds that George Lucas and his collaborators came up with. Not only is it great storytelling, but Lucas’ work set forth a new benchmark in visual storytelling with some of the greatest pyrotechnics ever put down.Then 1997 came. The computer graphics revolution was making its way into cinema, and Lucas went back and “revitalized” the films with updated effects and restored sequences. I have no problem with a slight edit here or an added scene through a director’s cut maybe a year or two after the release, but to revise it the way Lucasfilm did was a shame. I knew these films, and I felt that the Star Wars world had slowly become history. What I wouldn’t give to be back in 1977 in line at the Grauman’s Chinese watching a 70mm print of the original film…
The prequels that birthed in 1999 have still not left that much of an impression on me. I’m glad that they have their fans and I’m not going to debate that, but the escapist Saturday afternoon feel has somewhat dissipated into the computer, whiz-bang computer graphics industry of today. Where Episode I: The Phantom Menace failed in its overdone visual world (the obvious “Hey! I’m making a huge visual world with too many flying things!” was the reason that its visual effects Oscar lost to The Matrix) and Episode II: Attack of the Clones shot itself in the foot for dead-boring politics for the majority of its running time, the new Episode III: Revenge of the Sith film finds stronger footing in telling a straight A-to-B story arc. This is the best of the prequels.
What I especially liked out of the film was how the visual world blends so well into the later (or original) chapters in the story. In the film’s first virtuoso shot, we follow a long take where ships and fighters are established into the action. We first meet Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) and Anakin (Hayden Christensen) as they are out to rescue Palpatine (Ian McDarmind) from the clutches of Count Dooku. Once defeated, Anakin becomes closer and closer to Palpatine, whose true identity becomes slowly revealed as someone that Anakin forms a close bond to. Dark things are happening. Meanwhile, Anakin’s marriage to Padme (Natalie Portman) remains a secret, but it gets more complicated when she reveals that she is with child. Meanwhile, there are so many characters fighting for screen time like Obi Wan (Ewan McGregor) who is struggling with Anakin’s power, to Yoda (voice of Frank Oz) who is becoming more and more physically agile with each film.
The problem with the performances is that the dialogue is so poor that we don’t believe they are in the world that they are in. The entire film has been made on a blue screen soundstage (much like the recent Sin City and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow) and at times the actors look like they are performing from rear projections of each other. The stiff, awkward line-reading from Hayden Christensen makes me sad to think that his performance from Shattered Glass was a fluke, and Natalie Portman doesn’t do much better as Padme, who has a laughable sequence towards the end where her realization of Anakin’s power causes her to say “You’re breaking my heart. You’re going down a path I can’t follow.” Strange to think that she gave two of the better performances of last year in Garden State and Closer.
The major exception to this is the performance of Ian McDarmind as Senator Palpatine. Here is a wonderful bad guy worth remembering. His dark, brooding voice and menace towards the Jedi council ranks right up there, ironically, with Darth Vader from the earlier films. Mention must also be made to Christopher Lee, whose brief appearance as Count Dooku in this chapter reminded me of the menace he performed not only in Episode II, but as Sauraman in the ]Lord of the Rings films.
Visually, Lucas has spared no expense. Entire worlds and cities are created with the tools at Industrial Light and Magic; from the previously mentioned first shot that establishes warring ships to weird, strange planets; at times we will tend to get sensory overload from it all, but there is still a limitless imagination, and the later scenes blend nicely into the next chapter which was filmed 28 years ago. Lucas has returned to shooting in High-Definition video (Episode II was also shot this way) but since most of the film rests with computer graphics, the limitations to HD are only present in the dialogue sequences, which have an odd, off-kilter look compared to the rest of the films. High-Definition is still nowhere compared to shooting on film, and it’s too bad that he couldn’t use those 35mm cameras that made the older films look so wonderful.Despite all of my praise and criticism, “Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” is still worth seeing and pretty much critic-proof. Your enjoyment will come out of how much you bring into it and how much history you have with the series. That said, with the prequels finished and the series wrapped, there’s a definite edge missing in these recent films than the galaxy far, far away from 1977. And if one day Mr. Lucas could reissue the original, unaltered versions of the film to the home video medium, then we could return to that history that occurred a long time ago.
 del.icio.us 
link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=12284&reviewer=350
originally posted: 05/27/05 04:42:36
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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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