The best prequel is still light years behind the originals.

Rating: 7/10 (25 January 2011)

The best of the new Star Wars prequels is still light years away from the quality of the original movies. It's easier to examine the good things so i'll begin by saying Ian McDiarmid is superb as Emperor Palpatine. His character has real purpose and its something the prequels had lacked up until now. The general feeling still exists that is that big set pieces get in the way of telling a very important story. Before this film, audiences have had to endure Podraces, Jar Jar, droid factories, flying R2's and CG overload. What they really needed from this film,and this is something the original trilogy had in spades,was storytelling but instead we get a whole subplot where Obi Wan is chasing after some CGI robot with four lightsabres while riding some annoying sounding CGI animal and you just want to yell STOP!!!!! The developments between Anakin and Palpatine are interesting though, and McDiarmid recalls the same hammy brilliance seen in Return Of The Jedi. Hayden Christensen is still out of his depth as Anakin however and lacks the dramatic skill to really convey true menace. Another deeply disappointing moment comes when a suited and booted Vader is finally allowed to speak for the first time. There is a moment so embarrassing, it almost devalues the character forever. Nooooooooooooooooooo, he wails in the most unintentionally funny moment of the movie. So do we.