Godfather Four: Revenge of the Golden Voyage of Sinbad

Rating: 5/10 (22 May 2005)

Paging a script doctor to the O.R., this series needs resuscitation, stat!
Don't walk, RUN out of this meandering and tedious mishmash of clichés and ill-conceived ideas masquerading under the STAR WARS banner. I thought I'd learned my lesson after the abysmal EPISODE 1 and the mildly better ATTACK OF THE CLONES. Don't get me wrong, as movies all of these prequels are at about average sci-fi films, but when taken into context as a series with the original trilogy... well, the first two anyway... all three are exercises in sheer pointlessness.
Everything risible about the first two prequels is just as on display here. However sidelined the hated Jar Jar Binks is, he's replaced by equally irritating new characters like the not-funny coughing robot who sprouts four light sabers in a scene aping THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD. While we're on idea-theft, let's not forget the montage when all the Jedis get killed simultaneously as though we're watching the next installment of THE GODFATHER series. The clichés don't stop there, complete with a scene with Darth Vader screaming "NOOOO" to the sky while the camera pulls back, and copious amounts eyebrow raising bits of dialog. The worst part where Annakin is named Darth Vader, followed by John Williams's theme blaring in the background,as it has all the subtlety of a mallet cracking across the audience's heads.
No originality or suspense at all is to be found in this film. Why? Because in addition to the problems inherent in making prequels in general, it's written like the sentence I began this paragraph with, in passive, banal writing that reads as though a 4th grader won a contest and got to mail in the script. Darth Vader's spiral into evil makes no sense and seems to just come out of nowhere... no surprise as the character arc takes huge jumps in order to hasten the sagging pace, and yet the film STILL comes off as stiff and boring whenever the lasers stop flying.
How does this series still have fans? Films like this are an embarrassment to the industry, as well as people who liked the original films. At least Marin County digital garbage like this keeps the bar low for independent filmmakers. I assume it's now up to the video games and toys to attract new fans and make George Lucas his money now that the film series has completely imploded upon itself.