The best since Empire

Rating: 10/10 (12 June 2005)

Yeah, it's better than Jedi. It's even arguably better than A New Hope. It beats the living daylights out of Phantom Menace and Clones. But of course, certainly not Empire...
It's Revenge of the Sith, Lucas's latest (and final) addition to the Star Wars sextant. And it's good...
If you saw the first two Star Wars films to come out in the last decade, as well as that awful 1997 remastery of the original (I can't even bring myself to pick up the new DVDs I'm so distraught from those...), then you just might be under the opinion that Episode III is going to be another example of Lucas's senility...
Episode I and II were chock full of wooden acting. Well, gee, Episode IV, do you recall Luke whining about going down to the hachi station to pick up power converters? Yeah, that's one of those lines that I try to repress. Then Empire comes along. Leia kisses her twin brother with tongue. Gross. Jedi? Hello, the evil empire was ultimately defeated by...what? Teddy bears? Get out! The truth is, the original trilogy had a charm that the new trilogy lacks, and that charm is visual flaw (especially episode IV). They weren't nearly the big budget mammoths that our new films are, and the fact that the new generation of films are mostly animated seems to aggrevate a whole lot of die hard fans. Of course, back then the Death Star was a ping pong table loaded up with fireworks, which would just be silly to use today. However, in truth, the overall appeal of the characters isn't quite as strong throughout the trilogy this time around as it once was, and this is a claim that one could argue easily in favor of the original trilogy. The difference is, however, less than it seems...
Okay, lots to say here...
First, it seems somebody paid off some poor girl to go on a single date with Lucas because he seems to have the concept of love somewhat better in this film, albeit barely. He has limited his cornball love story as much as possible, making most of it take place within Anakin as he searches for a way to save Padme from certain childbirth death. However, the dialogue that takes place between the two of them is still trashy jargon. I think Lucas should have scrapped the idea of love and had Anakin just knock up some girl on a one night stand with twins. Sure, the morals would have been a little warped, but it's better than what we had to deal with in Episode II.
And Jar Jar doesn't bite the bullet like I had hoped he would. Well, at least he doesn't get a single line in this. Nope, not one. But still, he was the only one I really was excited about getting killed, and he didn't.
And that wraps up the flaws of the new film.
Christenson's (sp?) acting in the new film is miles ahead of how he was in Episode II. He appears much older and wiser. He has scars. A cool haircut. He's not crying out "it's not fair, obi-wan holds me back, waaaaaah." Nope. He's cool this time around. When he first kills Dooku in the beginning of the film, he responds quite rationally. "I shouldn't have done that. He was an unarmed prisoner." And from there, Palpatine proceeds to further dilute his morality. His descent into evil is honest. He wants to save the one he loves. The dark side clouds everything. Even awareness of what one does, apparently. But think about it. Anakin really would find Padme worth the deaths of a hundred or so "younglings" (oh there's another flaw. They won't say he killed children, they need to use the "youngling" euphemism. laaaaame). Pay attention to his character as the story progresses. It's not the first time he's slaughtered a bunch of children (see also: tusken raiders).
The truth is, much of the evil that Anakin commits in this movie is stuff he's been waiting to do all along. He would definitely have done to the viceroy of the Trade Federation what he did after turning evil had he been given the chance in Episode II. Again, I say, refer to the tusken raider sequence in Episode II. Almost every question regarding Anakin's seemingly erratic behavior can be answered there. There's a bit more to it, such as betrayal, but I believe that Anakin liked Padme a whole lot more than Mace Windu, who was the physical embodiment of Anakin's conflict between his power and his youth, and the one person that made him feel insignificant.
As a fan of McGregor since Trainspotting, I believe this might be his most brilliant acting job yet. It seems as though most of the great lines in this movie were reserved for him and Palpatine. Obi-Wan is convincing and truly emotionally brilliant. His reaction to his pupil's change is so utterly real it's amazing that it actually happened in a Star Wars film.
And it's fantastic to watch where the evil emperor really came from, where the master/student bond between him and Vader really began. Watching those two work together was perhaps the greatest joy of seeing this film.
This movie ends on a down note that makes Empire look like Sesame Street. And it leaves you wanting more. And this time, you don't have to wait three years. You just have to watch the crappy remastered episode IV instead of the charming original. Too bad, but hey, at least Lucas went out with a hell of a bang. Not a flawless movie, but surprisingly, next to Empire, the second least flawed of all time, meaning the second best of the series. That's right, I said it. 10/10.