While it delivers in a way, that the first two didn't, Episode 3 fails at the most important and substantial parts.

Rating: 4/10 (24 May 2005)

Let's start with a good thing: The incredible embarrassing "cheesy-lines-quota" of Episode 1 and 2 has been cut down to a factor of 1/2. But Lucas again utterly fails at portraying believable (let alone subtle) character-development that should have been the focus of this final installment. As Anakins progression to the dark side was hardly hinted at in the previous Episodes Lucas had a hard time of picturing this Jedis demise in a heartfelt and credible way. It just didn't work out.
The whole concept is somehow seriously flawed. Dialogues that consist of a cut of people exchanging two sentences, underused and underdeveloped villains (Darth Grievous - what was the fuss all about!?). But most annoyingly the abuse of well known lines and characters from the originals just for the sake of it. Holy Christ, this is supposed to be one of the biggest fictional universes ever created, why are we bound to run into the same people over and over? Chewbacca and C3P0 were useless - to maximum extend. That is except for reassuring people once and for all that this is, in fact, Star Wars. Thanks for the heads up, Mr. Lucas!
What we are left with is a truckload of well executed eye-candy, a more streamlined and less confusingly told storyline and an almost great final fight to death between two former friends. The latter even lets the viewer take a slight glimpse at how magnificent these prequels could have been.
And just for this I give it a 4.0 out of 10