Oh the shame

Rating: 3/10 (23 May 2005)

I attended the final instalment to bury this long-dead series, but I found this episode fascinating  for about 10 seconds. That would be the iconic moment when the black mask is lowered on to Anakin Skywalker's mangled face and he truly becomes Darth Vader. Unfortunately, this a movie does not make. Mostly, the entire experience left me embarrassed: embarrassed for being there in the dark, hoping against hope that I might get the rush I did when I was a kid from these movies, then realizing just how pathetic George Lucas's imagination really is; embarrassed for all the people in the theatre, who were probably in the same situation, who when it was all over were left justifying the time they wasted with comments such as: "It was better than the first two," or "A lot more lightsaber fights, eh?"; embarrassed how such an olio of awful, non-sensical science-fiction could become such a cultural touchstone; embarrassed for a fine actress such as Natalie Portman reduced to such childish, lousy material. No matter how many Closers or Garden States she does, the poor Portamn will be known the world over as the weakest female character I've seen in the movies since, well, ever. Crying, spouting Harlequin Romanceesque dialogue and dying in childbirth  not exactly the heroic type. (There really aren't any female characters in Lucas's films because the arrested development necessary for creating such dreck means few if any of the animators or computer-effects geeks have ever taken the time to talk to a live female. I just don't think that much time in the dark is good for the psyche.)
The thing I was most embarrassed about, however, was when I logged into IMDb.com and saw the rating this Sith received. If you are a fan of the cinema and not a Star Wars fanatic, do not be fooled by the giant machine that will try to turn this movie into a cultural force. Resist spending out of curiosity or out of hope. You are not missing anything of value. Lucas has always maintained these movies were kids' movies (although there was not a single child at my screening), but I think that is a convenient cover-up for his lazy screen writing. The first three had plots, good plots, and even if they were cheesy, they told a story. The last three are brutally plotted exercises in finishing a job that no one asked to be started. I would say all the high-tech special effects and pointless freak-show background characters were designed to distract you from the plot, but sadly, I think they are what Lucas really cares about