masterful

Rating: 9/10 (2 June 2005)

ROTS is a masterpiece, if flawed.
Having read many of the user/external comments, I am somewhat intrigued by the many reviewers who insult Lucas and savage the film. I can only assume they just didn't get it - and they are lashing out at their own ignorance.
More than any other mainstream speculative text of this century, ROTS is fiercely allegorical and satirical, exposing the evil and horror of dictatorship, genocide, and political lies.
It was not lost on this viewer that Lucas implied the Bush Administration with much of Palpatine's dialogue and the excellent Orwellian war plot; in which Palpatine cleverly plays off the Trade Federation and the Republic - and gorges on the spoils, his very own Galactic Empire.
Like many others, I was disappointed with The Phantom Menace - but I did feel Lucas made something of a comeback with Attack of the Clones, which features some powerful moments, notably Dooku's use of the truth to deceive the Jedi Council ('A Sith Lord now controls the Senate') and Anakin's slaying of the Sandpeople/children.
Layers of irony enfold ROTS - and it is irony that shadows/corrupts Anakin, superbly played by Hayden Christenson - and I mean superb, especially his physical acting, which was electrifying. People don't seem to et the idea that Anaking is emotionally twisted, deformed, remote - his love with Padme is awkward, clumsy and immature - because he is!!!!
That's precisely why Palpatine so easily transfixes, seduces him with power - the power to save both Padme and the Republic - that he destroys both in saving them is poetic, if dark, irony.
Criticisms I've read and can't put aside are these:
Leia remembers her mother ... BUT Is it not possible that she doesn't realise she was adopted - perhaps Bail's wife dies and he remarries ...
Anakin falls to quickly ... BUT Anakin is already darkened - in AOTC he slaughters Sandpeople, praises the concept of dictatorship, is quick to anger, volatile - when he slays Mace Windu, he has reached a point of no return - he must obey his Master.
Padme didn't have an ultrasound ... BUT she needed to keep her pregnancy a secret - it would destroy her career and Anakin's ambitions.
In the opening line of this review, I did say flawed, primarily because I wished that Vader/Palpatine had murdered Padme, or at least she might have died of illness - I didn't feel it plausible that she would surrender to death when she had children to care for.
Her crime, submitting to a spiritual death, was out of keeping with her character - she had presented as a formidable, determined and sincere Senator - and this diminished her.
Her death is a betrayal of the children, a betrayal as heinous as Vader's.
Ultimately, the grandest irony of ROTS is Sidious's inference that he and Plagueis immaculately conceived Anakin - a midichlorian Antichrist, Anakin was made to exterminate the Jedi Council, pave the way for a Sith reign.
Thanks, George, for making a film for thinking people.
PS I'd love Episode VII, VIII, IX!