A sprawling underachiever.

Rating: Null/10 (6 October 2011)

The story is a bit too convoluted to be great drama, the reliance on political manoeuvring to make up most of the story, interesting though it is, does not make great entertainment.
The production is certainly lavish, an impressive level of detail is on show but herein lies the movies weakness. There is too much that does not make up part of the narrative, but rather serves a distraction from it, resulting in a movie that never flows like it should. Lame attempts at humour (some of it entirely unfunny) detract from the drama rather than adding to it, blunting the emotional scenes. The best moments are the action set pieces.
Exceptionally well crafted, never dull nor confusing, the light-sabre duels are especially worthy of praise. Sadly, the film fails to juggle all the constituent elements and the overall feeling is that less might have been more.