Far better than the first two, but not for the right reasons...

Rating: 6/10 (19 May 2005)

Revenge of the Sith occupies an odd position in terms of its' fans expectations--pretty much everyone who cares even a bit about the Star Wars saga knows exactly what's going to happen in the film, at least in a broad sense. The thrill that people flock to the theaters for is to see HOW it happens--how the monumental original trilogy will be connected to the far more lackluster recent two films to complete one of the grandest (at least in terms of popularity) movie sagas of all time.
George Lucas, thus, has the best possible material to work here that money can buy. He gets to depict events that will be exciting to a Star Wars fan no matter how well they're done; even Jar Jar Binks (probably) couldn't spoil them. So does Lucas rise to the hopes of movie fans and create a movie that's considerably better than The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones? Not really. Don't get me wrong--the film is FAR more enjoyable than those two, but it's more in spite of Lucas than because of him.
Just as the three original films followed Luke Skywalker, the three prequels follow Anakin Skywalker, and it is in this film that we bear witness to the great transformation that's been known to Star Wars fans for many years. This film's role, then, is to show how it happened and why. Well, it certainly does the former, but the latter doesn't fare so well. Anakin's development at first grinds along at a snail's pace and then suddenly kicks into overdrive, with him seeming to transform into a whole new character entirely in the span of one short scene. Of course Lucas has been hinting at this in none-too-subtle ways from the beginning of Attack of the Clones, but there seems to be no bridge of any kind between mere glimmers and the actual completed change. The one reason this film keeps pounding home seems rather flimsily constructed. Neither is the reason why viewers will find Yoda where he is in The Empire Strikes Back very convincing; the master explains it away with one cryptic line that left me asking "...why?" What this movie does do well is visuals and music, particularly in the battle scenes. And yes folks, this movie is loaded to the brim with fighting. Spaceships fight, armies fight, Jedi fight, even Wookies fight. And that fighting looks and sounds utterly fantastic. The four-armed General Grievous is particularly fun to watch. The acting is a mixed bag. Ian McDiarmid and Ewan McGregor carry this film--Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman's speaking roles seem comparatively minor. The few scenes the latter two get are unfortunately just as cheesy as their hammy romance in AotC, but blessedly are all much shorter.
Lucas goes out of his way over and over again in this film to connect to the original three movies. C3PO and R2D2 are everywhere, often with no apparent reason, and even Chewbacca and Wedge make brief cameos. Jar Jar Binks is thankfully completely absent (he is seen a few times, but never heard). Unfortunately, Lucas has no subtlety, and much of these connections come from the various characters that recur later in the form of simply repeating, word for word, lines that they've already uttered in the sequels. McDiarmid's script is unfortunately particularly laden with this. Then again, the script in general is overall poor--filled to the brim with cheesy declarations like "It's over; I have the high ground!" and a prolonged scream of "No!!!" that makes William Shatner's "Khan!!!" in Star Trek II seem like Shakespeare in comparison.
It's a good thing this movie is so damn pretty and the fight scenes so enthralling. They were all along, really, it's just this movie has so many MORE of them than TPM and AotC. It's not directed or written any better than they are, it simply removes a lot of what has been bad all along and replaces it with more of what's been good all along, in the process combining it with material that's only as powerful as it is because of the three original films. And while it does finally form the SW films into one cohesive epic, it does so in a way that never approaches, much less exceeds, the inherent quality of its material. While I will give this a 7/10, that grade is more for the special effect crews and the composer than anything more substantial.