Good, but not great

Rating: 5/10 (6 June 2005)

Star Wars III, Revenge of the Sith, the long-awaited grand finale to the prequel of the Star Wars trilogy, is a good movie, but not the best in the series. When it was announced that this movie would be the darkest of the three prequel-movies, I had thought they were referring to the story rather than the actual lighting of the movie.
The transition of the young, gentle and somewhat naive Anakin Skywalker to the evil, ruthless, mass-murdering Darth Vader was not really convincing. It went too fast and too easy. There was almost nothing to the internal conflict that Anakin Skywalker must have felt whilst being drawn to the dark side. There was just a hint of frustration and anger at the end, when he learns that his transition to the dark side has caused just that which he tried to prevent.
There was no feeling, no emotion in this movie. Not in the love between Anakin and Padme, not in Anakin's rage and frustration, not in Obi Wan's disappointment. It was all too clinical and superficial. It did have great high-speed action scenes, but having expected much more from it, I cannot help but feel that the action scenes were there to make up for the lack of an in-depth story.
Two lines to be remembered though (paraphrased, not quoted): Anakin: "If you are not with me, then you are my enemy". Obi Wan: "Only a Sith Lord would think in such black-and-white way".