22 years was worth the wait for a pre-quel worthy of the name!

Rating: 9/10 (21 May 2005)

(WARNING - SP0ILERS CONTAINED) There is a lot to like about this film, certainly those looking for special effects and lighting fast, intricately choreographed fight scenes will be blown out of their seat. This film is hands down the most visually stunning work to ever hit the big screen (if this indeed the curtain on the franchise, Mr. Lucas left nothing back in the barn). As great as all that was, what makes this film great are its re-capturing of the soul of the original trilogy. Once again we have the compelling characters, riveting story line, and inspired performances that the previous 2 efforts so sorely lacked. True, this one being so closely linked timewise to the original picture provided a frame of reference that made it much easier for the fan to throw himself into, but it took more than that to re-capture the original magic, which this film clearly was successful in achieving.
I have to say hats off to an incredible job in pulling off the central theme of the movie, the seduction and fall of Anakin Skywalker. As a friend said, "after seeing this you will understand Darth Vader in an entirely different light". The script did a masterful job of portraying the bad choices and dis-ordered tendencies of Anakin, a "slippery slope" that ended where we knew it had to, but nonetheless kept you on the edge of your seat to see how someone with such promise, some talent, and such seemingly good intentions despite his flaws could fall so prodigiously into the cold, seemingly soul-less machine of the trilogy. Coming into the movie it seemed to me a stretch to bridge such a disparate gap between the rising star Anakin of Clones to the Monstrous Darth Vader of Episode 4, but the development was eminently believable as well as incredibly insightful into the impact that our choices to do good or evil have upon us, and how what once was unthinkable becomes seemingly unavoidable at a certain distance down the path. The manipulation of Anakin by Chancellor Palpatine (portrayed masterfully by Ian McDiarmid, a posting unto itself) was chilling to the bone. Last but not least, Hayden Christensen deserves enormous credit for a performance that cemented the impact of this movie to me. The humanity he portrayed in the fall of Anakin, bringing out both his desire to serve as a Jedi and protect Padme, as well as his prideful tendencies which ultimately destroyed him and everything he had trained for (redemtion in "Return" notwithstanding), was a breakout performance. The plastic, wooden acting of the previous 2 installments was replaced by performances worthy of the original trilogy (even Natalie Portman was much more believable this time around). There were too many memorable moments in the "devolution" of Anakin to expound on, but I can still feel the chill down my spine of seeing Anakin prepped on the table to become the helmeted Darth Vader, and the shot of the mask coming over his face. I was still in shock at the tragedy of his "Faustian bargain" and horrified at how he became what he did. I am still chewing on the many great lessons that this morality tale imparts, and am thankful that we were given the opportunity to truly savor the last moments of the series that inspired and touched us in a way that no other motion picture saga is likely to top.