Revenge of the Sith -- A review from a guy who really saw it!

Rating: 8/10 (8 May 2005)

With the thunder of war drums blasting, George Lucas dangles you over a Republic Star Cruiser for about a minute only to reveal a space battle so electric it was hard to keep up with, much less blink my eyes. John Williams' amazing score makes it even better. Visually, it is probably the best sequence of the entire "Star Wars" saga, and a brilliant way to reintroduce the major characters around whom the prequel trilogy is based.
After the opening sequence, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker go to rescue Chancellor Palpatine from General Grievous and Count Dooku. Here, some acting is required and I knew not to expect much because it didn't happen in any of the other movies.
After this first part of the film, much to his credit, Lucas allows Ian McDiarmid's performance of Palpatine to be the foundation of the whole film. He is so evil in the role, that he will likely now be seen as the overall villain of "Star Wars."
His manipulation of Anakin toward the dark side of the Force is done with the cunning of a politician and I suspect McDiarmid may have studied some of the great bastards of history.
Yoda, who was mostly computer graphics over Frank Oz' voice, played the perfect enemy for Palpatine, who declares himself Emperor. It is he who seems to bring the whole film together and provide a connection with the original trilogy, and some kickass fight scenes of his own, especially one where he battles Palpatine in the Senate chamber.
Seeming more confident than before in the character, Ewan McGregor, turns in a performance as Obi-Wan Kenobi that gets increasingly better as the movie darkens.
You also see him in a lightsaber duel with General Grievous that is so f*ckin' sweet that you'll be left lamenting that he didn't get more screen time, much the way people complain Boba Fett was cheated in the original trilogy.
Most importantly, you get to see him become fearful of what is transpiring behind the Jedi's unwitting backs and he all but says "we're a bunch of morons" for not realizing what Palpatine has been up to all these years.
Natalie Portman's Padme performance is almost a non-entity in this movie and she is the only female character with a major speaking role. Although Portman has been an Oscar nominee, I have always felt she was poorly picked for this role because she doesn't exhibit the feistiness of her predecessor, Carrie Fisher.
Speaking of poor choices, the normally wooden Hayden Christiansen's portrayal of Anakin Skywalker is only a little better than in "Attack of the Clones." He remains unable to emote at times when he should and is believable in the role only because the Palpatine character brings it out of him.
Even in the Darth Vader suit near the end, he is a letdown of sorts because his lack of rhythm prevents the anger we think he should exhibit when he finds out the fate of his wife, Padme.
This prevents James Earl Jones, who now takes over as Vader's voice, from projecting the feelings we all know he can. Christiansen's clumsy movement stops a powerful Jones roar because the voice wouldn't match the scene.
With that said, Christiansen is actually the showstopper in the two most important scenes in the movie.
First the the battle between Mace Windu and Palpatine, in which Samuel L. Jackson had said before that he wouldn't "go out like a punk." And he doesn't. Instead he goes out like some sort of cosmic Crispus Attucks, and not before making a permanent and familiar mark on "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi." Anakin then turns permanently to the dark side and you can feel him submitting to Palpatine's evil because his last action was a point of no return.
Second, of course the long anticipated battle on the volcanic lava planet Mustafar with Obi-Wan Kenobi. Lucas was smart to put all of the intensity of the movie into this sequence. Here the martial arts and swordplay movements of the two dueling Jedi are so slick, that it makes me want Lucas to reshoot the Vader/Kenobi fight in the original "A New Hope" to add more action to it.
Finally, the moment of truth, when we find out how Kenobi bests Anakin, who has now let the Vader identity consume him and is having delusions of grandeur about "my new empire." I won't give this one up, but be warned: Kenobi f*cks him up and good.
The rest of the movie, though very sad, is filled the long awaited tie-ins with the original films; the birth of Luke and Leia, Obi-Wan and Yoda going into hiding; there is even a skeleton of the Death Star in its first stages of construction.
But the film doesn't answer every question that I know nitpicky fans will ask like: how Leia could remember her mother; how Obi-Wan gets the name 'Ben'; what Palpatine's true origins are; how Anakin was conceived asexually (although the Darth Plagueis anecdote Palpatine tells, gives a veiled clue).
And most importantly, the question of Force ghosts. I was really disappointed by what seemed to be a blowoff of that issue, with Yoda simply saying he will show Obi-Wan how to communicate with his old master Qui-Gon Ginn. They also fail to explain why they are just now discovering Force ghosts after thousands of years of Jedi orthodoxy.
Unfortunately, here there are no surprise cameos by Liam Neeson in the Qui-Gonn role (early rumors had it that Neeson's voice would speak to the living Jedi to at least brighten their battered spirits.
Still, "Revenge of the Sith" was still a more than satisfying filmgoing experience, running a close second as a film only to "The Empire Strikes Back" in the series.