Better than EP's 1 & 2, but still flawed . . .

Rating: Null/10 (22 May 2005)

Well, what can I say, I approached Revenge of the Sith with some trepidation, but was pleasantly surprised...to a point.
I'm no fan of Phantom Menace, and though Attack of the Clones was sort of an improvement, they both suffered from the same problem; heavyweight plot ideas, supported by weak, underwritten, adolescent screenplays.
RotS shows some improvement in the area of writing, but only to a degree, George Lucas really should handed over scripting duties to a REAL writer who would been able to shape his story ideas into the mature, fully-rounded scripts they needed to be - do I have to cite Empire? It strikes me that Lucas has problems with younger audiences in terms of trusting their level of sophistication with plotting and character development - witness the way the romance between Anakin and Amidala was handled in TPM - mawkish, adolescent and clumsy, are words that spring to mind.
Direction on RotS is what you'd expect from George Lucas, breathtaking visuals, impressive handling of action, but a certain unrefined quality to non-action/special effects scenes. One suspects that Lucas is either impatient and/or uncomfortable with character-based scenes and feels compelled to move the action along just in case the audience loses interest and becomes bored - this is his flaw, Lucas doesn't TRUST his viewers attention span and therefore the story suffers.
But these are minor issues when compared to the talentless wretch of a so-called actor that is Hayden Christensen, whose non-performance seriously undermines Revenge of the Sith. It shocks me that with the wealth of acting talent in North America, that Lucas could have cast such a pivotal character as Anakin Skywalker SO badly.
I've seen table legs give better performances than this young man, who brings an entirely new definition to the term 'wooden acting' - his acting in RotS consists mainly of intense stares, more intense stares and for good measure, even more intense stares.
This lack of thespian skills on the behalf of Mr. Christensen is very much highlighted when he has to share screen time with any of his peers - Ewan McGregor (Obi Wan) acts Christensen out of the water, as does Ian McDiarmid (Palpatine) even a VERY badly underwritten Natalie Portman (Amidala) acts the socks off her screen lover.
As one would expect of a George Lucas film, production values are very high - Costumes, Production Design, Editing, Visual Effects are superb and even the Digital Cinematography looks good (for a change!).
All in all, as the last (non-chronological) entry in the Star Wars saga, Revenge of the Sith acquits itself quite well - despite some of the shortcomings.
Lata.