Good thing this is the last one!

Rating: 5/10 (5 June 2005)

This shows how Anakin Skywalker (Haydn Christensen) became Dath Vader with all political intrigues and such. The film will be incomprehensible if you haven't seen Episodes 1 and 2.
All right--I'm not a Star Wars fan. I'm not much into science fiction at all. Still I don't think that's the reason I'm giving this film a 5. All the good reviews of this are beyond me. Yes, the special effects are amazing...but I need more than that for me to enjoy a movie. I need a good script and characters I care about to enjoy it. Unfortunately George Lucas wrote this and he once again shows that he couldn't write to save his life. The dialogue is just impossibly bad--pure drivel. All the characters talk like they're idiots. The romantic interludes between Christensen and his wife (Natalie Portman) had my audience laughing. They are truly hysterically bad--I give Portman and Christensen credit for saying those lines with straight faces. After a while I got mad at the movie--I felt like it was talking down to me and assumed I was in idiot. Everything is broken down to the level of a bad sci-fi comic book.
As for the acting...let's put it this way--Yoda (a CGI creation) gives the best performance! I'm not joking--the acting is that bad! Christensen was just hopeless in the lead--he makes one long for Jake Lloyd! His attempts to show the Dark Side in his face were just pathetic. Portman tries (too hard) to give a good performance but the dialogue defeats her. Ewan McGregor and Samuel L. Jackson walk through their roles in a daze--I NEVER thought I would see those two great actors give bad performances! Ian McDiarmid ALMOST gives a good performance as Chancellor Palpatine---almost. As for Yoda--he's great. One terrific moment has him casually waving his hand and knocking two guys flat. I really can't believe I'm giving a CGI creation top acting honors...but I am.
I was mostly bored to death and looking at my watch more than a few times. I'm really surprised that this is in IMDb's top 250 movies.
Also you might want to keep small kids away from this film. One child is killed on screen and it's made clear (twice) that a bunch of them had been murdered.
I know I'm in the minority but I can only give this a 5.