George Lucas gets it right!

Rating: 10/10 (5 May 2009)

After the extremely disappointing "Attack of the Clones", I was expecting next to nothing from the next instalment in the Star Wars saga— "Revenge of the Sith". Luckily, "Revenge of the Sith" completely outdid its predecessor. For once, George Lucas got it completely right: a good story, good acting, great special effects, and John Williams' fabulous music all add up to create a really good movie.
Let's start with the acting: Natalie Portman is fabulous as Padmé. Her look, though, looks like a really cheap rip-off of Carrie Fischer's character in the original trilogy. Hayden Christensen's acting improved vastly since Attack of the Clones, but he still has his "spoiled and annoying brat" moments. Samuel L. Jackson finally gets off his comfy chair in the Jedi Council for more than 10 minutes, and demonstrates some really neat lightsaber duelling. However, Jackson's acting is quite consistently poor. I found out that when signing his contract, he insisted that when it came for his character to die, he should die a dramatic death, and not be killed off "like some punk". Well, his death was certainly dramatic, but it was also obviously crafted just to fit the deal: in classic George Lucas style, it's too dramatic, and in the end, it just seems to lack something. Ian McDiarmid, however, who was absolutely perfectly villainous as the Emperor in Return of the Jedi, gives an equally stunning performance. At last, that friendly, industrious Senator Palpatine reveals his true, villainous face, coercing Anakin to join the Dark Side and turn his back on the Jedi. He is perfectly sinister every moment he's on screen.
I wish George Lucas would stop this "I-can't-go-wrong" attitude of his, though. His script writing is quite poor: the dialogue is cheesy, for lack of a more intelligent word, especially his love scenes, which are just "bleh!" (for lack of a better, more intelligent word).
On the bright side, to make up for his ineptitude at direction, John Williams returns yet again to compose a beautiful score, which helped take my mind off what Lucas did wrong, and focus on the story, which for once, was actually really good, despite the fact that we all knew what the end would be. Anyone who's seen "A New Hope" knows for sure. Heck, anyone who reads the back of the DVD box knows the end! The special effects are stunning, and for once, not too distracting. The lighstaber duels, by the way, are breathtakingly choreographed- but they don't even come close to rivaling the breathtaking Duel of the Fates.
So, all things considered, "Revenge of the Sith" is surprisingly successful.