Mixed Emotions

Rating: 5/10 (17 June 2005)

Wow. I don't really know quite how to review a film that serves as the ultimate culmination of my childhood fantasies, when I used to run around the backyard with a blue-painted broom handle imagining what it was like when the Jedi ruled the galaxy "before the dark times," wondering what the circumstances were that led a noble Knight of the Republic to become the most feared baddie in the galaxy. Now I know, or at least I know how Goerge Lucas imagined it all going down.
I think this is a movie that is in many ways wholly unique, because it has lived for so long in the minds of so many. When Vader says to Obi-Wan, "so we meet again, at last," you--or at least I--always wanted to see so badly their last meeting.
Well, now we've seen it, along with a handful of other glossy, digitally-enhanced snapshots from a galaxy far, far away.
I could go on and on about the wooden acting, the horribly stilted and clichéd dialog, the over-reliance on special effects and the lack of genuine character development. But I'll leave that for others. What I will say is that this film, more so than either of the other turgid prequels, left me feeling like I'd just watched a STAR WARS movie. I walked out of the theater humming the opening theme, wishing for the first time in too many years that I could be a Jedi. For all its flaws, this movie re-invoked that old feeling I got the very first time I watched those yellow letters disappear into the vastness of space.
I gave this movie a 5 because it will really divide the movie-going public. For many, it'll be just another bloated summer blockbuster. But for those who, like me, still sometimes let their minds wander to those afternoons in the backyard, it will be two-and-a-half hours of Star Wars.