Great Action/Slooooooow Dialogue/Still Worth the $8

Rating: 5/10 (16 May 2002)

Wow, talk about mixed feelings about a movie. At some moments, it was:
"Impressive..."--Darth Vader, Episode V
At others:
"I've got a bad feeling about this..."--Episode IV, V, VI, I, II
First, the good--some of the best fight sequences they've ever had, good inside jokes and references, and best of all, we clear up some of that Trade Federation v. Republic v. Jedi Council, who's what where from Episode I. And it was nice to see the opening credit scroll without a mention of an economic crisis in the galaxy--that threw me for a loop at the beginning of Episode I. Hey, it's Star WARS! What's with this economy stuff? And for you Jar Jar haters, he's only in 2 scenes.
As for the bad--in some parts, it is slooooooooooooow, in particular, Anakin's courtship of Amidala. And some of the dialogue between action sequences is not particularly interesting. In those sequences, it often feels like you're watching a Shakespearean play, "And now, I will take leave of you my good lady, but I shall return in a fortnight." Kind of missing Luke and Han's regular guy kind of talk. And though the FX are on the whole magnificent, state of the art, certain CGI images looked a little fakey, though nowhere near as bad as Spiderman.
So, in the end I'd have to say 2.5 stars. But definitely worth seeing--the payoff was so good after long stretches of dull dialogue that it was definitely worth the wait.