The Godfather part III in space!

Rating: 6/10 (17 July 2005)

With cheesy dire-loge, inept storytelling and a cast of pretty driftwood in place, you can be sure its star wars time again.As you may have guessed, I'm not a fan of the franchise but think that this is the instalment that, -out of all of them - demands an unbiased opinion.I'm sure that the fan-boys will wail in adulation that Lucas has returned to something ,even slightly resembling form-he has'nt.All he has done is turn the dial up a bit from the insipid "clones".Uncle George has spoken of the "padding" he did in order to create a new trilogy for 20th century fox,but had promised this to be nothing but the real meat of the story-wrong again!We are made to endure at least another hour of padding b4 the fun begins and even then, the overriding feeling of cold detachment -the result of CG overload-is present and correct.On the plus side ,there are a hand full of cracking set pieces: Anakin crossing the point of no return with the execution of Dooku, a mass Jedi cull that would make Coppola proud and the final face/off between young Skywalker and his Master.Lest I forget to mention ,Sith's biggest asset:McDiarmid, his Palpatine appositively oozes malevolence from every pore and chews the scenery as if it were really there.All in all as enjoyable, operatic ,space-age melodrama goes this is a winner but as cinema's equivalent to the prodigal son? As Lord Vader puts it in the films most embarrassing moment "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!