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
|
|
| Star Wars: Episode 3 - Revenge of the Sith |
by Todd LaPlace
"“Empire” will always be the best."
|
I have a confession to make. I’ve never really been all that enamored with the “Star Wars” saga. I watched them, I enjoyed them, but I’ve never been the type to camp out for tickets for that first midnight screening. I’m not sure if that makes me more or less qualified to review this final installment of the prequel trilogy. In terms of a “Star Wars” movie, this one has got plenty of exciting visual moments that should make the fanboys happy. In terms of being a quality film, though, this is one movie that deserves a quick death because of its total disregard for good screenwriting.One of the most common dilemmas raised by contemporary blockbusters reflects the struggle between style and substance. One the one hand, film is primarily a visual medium, and when those visuals amount to a stunning view of picturesque alien worlds and their unusual hodgepodge of inhabitants, the picture can be a joy to watch. On the other, a picture without any meat behind it can be an excruciating experience as the visual amount to little more than a handful of pretty pictures that banally last for several hours.
If cinematic history has suggested anything, it’s that blockbusters rarely straddle the divide. Smaller movies like “Snow Falling on Cedars” had style and substance; blockbusters “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” and the pair of “Matrix” sequels did not. After two disappointing “Star Wars” prequels, the hopes were high for “Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” to break the trend and achieve that sought after combination.
As if this is any shock at this point, but “Episode III” is just another stylish blockbuster, designed to pull in the big box office bucks without actually delivering anything of quality. The blame can’t be placed entirely on crappy filmmaking, though; the story has become so well known, the film can’t help but simply be a necessary way of connecting the first episode with the latter ones. We already know Anakin (Hayden Christensen) will join the dark side. We know Padme (Natalie Portman) will birth twins. We know the Jedi will all bite it by the movie’s end. Unless some crazy twist was thrown into the plot, this was going to be the inevitable narrative, and with the audience already being this aware, the story is bound to be boring.
George Lucas isn’t getting off that easily, though. Despite the known story, a strong screenplay could potentially lift the film. That’s Lucas’ sole job as screenwriter (as the story was already established), but he spectacularly failed in this respect. One of the most common criticisms of “Episode II” was stunted dialogue, especially when it came to inter-character relations (i.e. the love story between Anakin and Padme). It’s troubling to see Lucas didn’t learn anything from those reviews, as the same problem appears. Does he really believe “Hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo” is romantic? Does he even believe it’s good?
Lucas has actually been quoted by “The New York Post” as saying he knows his dialogue isn’t good and that he “doesn’t like writing” and “doesn’t like scripts.” If that’s really the case, why doesn’t he get someone else to do the dialogue? It’s clear Lucas is more concerned with light saber duals and inventing new creatures anyway, so why not try and make the film even stronger by handing off parts to people who do care about the scripts? Perhaps then, the films would be remembered for more than just Jedi rat tails, pod races, purple light sabers and racist alien species.
Such visual elements do matter to Lucas, however, as the film certainly has its fair share. The film opens in the middle of a space battle between the republic and the separatists with both Anakin and Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) in the middle of the fight as they are the ones in charge of rescuing a kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid). It’s notable that the first twenty minutes of the film feature a space battle, a huge light saber duel with Count Dooku (Christopher Lee) and a major character’s death and another’s introduction, the robotic General Grievous — tragic foreshadowing for the vacant spectacle to come. The film quickly degrades into a series of fights with every character taking a swing at every other character (Yoda gets involved in another fight, as does R2-D2, who seems to keep developing powers).
“Episode III” is just an excuse to give visual representation to scenes fans have been imagining for years. Catch the first twenty minutes for a quick fight, disappear from an hour and a half, and return for the last twenty minutes, where you get the final climactic fight and the donning of the classic uniform. The rest is just lame filler that amounts to several hours of cinematic boredom.George, we get it. Light sabers are cool. Yoda is cool. Chewbacca is cool. You don’t have to shove it all down our throats. You get points for the quality performance from five-time villain Ian McDiarmid, but that’s being pretty generous. You’re great at coming up with interesting stories, but take a few screenwriting classes before you try and give us something this bad again.
 del.icio.us 
link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=12284&reviewer=401
originally posted: 05/28/05 07:01:53
![[printer]](/images/icon/printer.gif) printer-friendly format
|
 |
USA
19-May-2005 (PG-13)
DVD: 01-Nov-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
19-May-2005
|
|
Articles 
subscribe to this feed
![[AllPosters.com]](/images/icon/ap.gif){kind=icon}
