The most average movie ever to deserve an 8

Rating: 8/10 (21 June 2005)

Leading up to 'Sith', people weren't optimistic, given the lacklustre standard of the previous two. 'Sith' shouldn't have been as good as it was.
The start was a boring, heartless, CGI-feast - I was ready to walk out. The relationship between Anakin and Padme was really quite bad. The chemistry between Christensen and Portman - the main reason Lucas hired them - did not show. Christensen over-played Anakin too much, he tried too hard, and it showed. Portman even managed to look ugly in one shot. Both had dialogue which would have been better written by my 10 year old brother. The birth of the hugely significant twins was just crap, rushed and unemotional. McGregor was good, but no better than good. And really, it is fairly incomprehensible that Anakin could murder innocent young Jedi's after turning "evil" two hours before. Against all these odds, and many more, it is a triumph simply in that 'Sith' is actually a good film. The first two acts were almost B-grade, but something happened during Anakin's rampage that drew me in. The filming seemed better, the script seemed to appear to at least have been written by someone who passed English, and Christensen pretty much under-played Anakin, with passable results. But in the third act I raised by rating from a 4 to a 7.
And then, the ending was just superb, setting the tone perfectly for 'A New Hope' giving the audience hope against such despairable odds. Immediately concluding this movie, I went home and watched 'A New Hope'. And because this movie made me do that, it really deserves 8/10, even though it really shouldn't have been that good.