Revengers Tragedy

Rating: 8/10 (8 June 2005)

Well no doubt in the flood of user reviews here on IMDb much has been said along the lines of "Lucas finally gets back on track and erases the painful memory of the first two prequels with a coup de grace that leaves you breathless/fulfilled/back in the world of the original Star Wars etc"
And much as I'd love to contradict them all just for the sake of argument - they're not wrong!
I'd like to think of myself as a fairly balanced individual who, even though Star Wars was the first movie I saw on my own as an 8 year old kid and therefore it has an almost reverential status in my life... I actually didn't mind the prequels that much. Yes Jar Jar Binks was annoying, but so were the Ewoks to be honest. Yes, Hayden Christiansen was excruciating in the love scenes in 'Clones', but then Mark Hamill was pretty corny in the original and even Harrison Ford had some cringe-worthy moments of his own with Princess Leia.
So I had high hopes for 'Revenge' and trusted that Lucas would iron out some of the more annoying elements of the two prequels. In fact one of my biggest criticisms was the fact that a wise-cracking Han Solo seems to be missing from the prequels - i'm sorry, but Ewan MacGregor's one-liners were pitiful and had been one of the most annoying things in 'Clones'. So when 'Revenge' opened with a few Obi Wan quips about 'flying is for droids' - I prepared myself for the worst.
But hell, that was it. From the moment Anakin cut off Count Dooku's head it was a darker movie altogether. Yep, still a few dodgy love scenes, but these only served to point at the tragedy of the man we knew would become Darth Vader. Samuel L Jackson finally became what he has always threatened to be - the 'hardest mutha******' Jedi that ever lived, Yoda became a grim prophet rather than a Bruce Lee imitating puppet, Anakin became a troubled and ultimately, insane killer of defenceless children. Ian McDiarmid as Emperor Palpatine gave us another fine rendition of absolute calculated evil and Obi Wan finally lost his British upper-class accent and became the lightsabre wielding, death-dealing revenant we always wanted him to be.
Personally, with the exception of Alec Guinness's Obi Wan and Liam Neesom's near perfect rendition of Qui Gon Jin, I've always found the Jedi knights a bit of a let down - Luke Skywalker's transformation to a full Jedi in 'Return' being a prime example! Finally, in 'Revenge', the Jedi, including Anakin & Obi Wan, really started to be a credible elite ... which made it all the more tragic when the Clone Troopers committed the ultimate act of betrayal in a flurry of Jedi assassinations.
As you may realise from the above, although the SFX were of their usual eye-popping standard, they were well in the background. You were swept away on the emotions of the characters, the dark, powerful storyline and the tragedy of what you knew would be the final outcome. There could be no cop-out happy ending to this film, let's face it.
Even with all the above it must be said that the highlight of the film is unsurprisingly the duel between Obi Wan and Anakin. Finally both actors could let rip with their emotions and the highly-charged dialogue, as well as obviously, the best lightsabre duel you've ever seen. It was so good in fact that I forgave both actors their patchy moments in the previous two films and they were totally absorbing as both betrayer and betrayed. It was also this moment that made me realise why this film worked so well - it was like a dark Jacobean tragedy, one of those post-Elizabethan pieces where everyone is dead or dying on stage at the end and no-one, women or children, are spared a grisly end. It was fantastic - in every sense of the word :-)
So yeah - go and see it on the big screen. Prolly see it two or three times and whilst it's not going to replace the original 'Star Wars' or 'Empire' for the most of us, it's certainly up there! There were some really thoughtful touches to link it to the original trilogy too - from the obvious inclusion of the Wookies and Chewbacca, to the neat plot-tie up when Threepio has his memory wiped, to the subtle background shot of the Millennium Falcon in an early scene on Coruscant.
Finally - seeing this film in New Zealand is a special treat as the audience whooped and cheered every time Temuera Morrison (aka every Clone Commander - and of course Jango Fett in Episode II ) was on screen, and the Queen of Naboo was played by Keisha Castle-Hughes who was the child-star of the acclaimed 'Whale-Rider'. Moments like these reinforced the fact that this film will become a long-awaited bridge between the fans of the original trilogy and today's new audiences.