Not a Perfect Way to End the Franchise, but a Good One

Rating: 9/10 (18 May 2014)

If they had ended the movies here, I would've been satisfied. While the Phantom Menace may have suffered from confusing villains and a story that was more aimed at setting up future installments than being good and Attack of the Clones was a steaming pile blaster-riddled bantha fodder, Revenge of the Sith finally got its act together and gave us a proper Star Wars story.
Now, if you are one of the few that HAVEN'T seen this movie, either out of ignorance or because you saw RedLetterMedia's nitpicky review of it, here's the synopsis: it opens with stuff happening, stuff happens throughout the film, and it closes with the stuff that happens in A New Hope beginning to happen. And most of that stuff is dark, as in darker-than-Empire-Strikes-Back dark. This is the film where we finally see Anakin go from the whiny teenager that no one seems to understand (except me, it seems) to Darth Vader.
My one and only complaint about the movie is some of the dialogue. Anakin and Padme have some love-banter halfway in that REALLY hurts, and some of the things that the Clones do isn't properly addressed.
I don't think it's fair to complain about the acting, since the Jedi have more or less been portrayed as a bunch of unfeeling automatons at this point anyway (again, catering to setup rather than telling a good story). Obi-Wan seems to have maintained his humanity throughout the ordeals, and as usual Palpatine is delightfully diabolical. Anakin's power deprivation finally reaches a boiling point and once again Christopher Lee as Count Dooku doesn't get nearly enough screen time.
Despite all that, I still agree with the 87% of critics who think this movie is worth rewatching. At the very least if gives you some insight into the man in the Darth Vader mask.