Probably the grimmest blockbuster ever made

Rating: 9/10 (23 April 2020)

No more should the Empire Strikes Back be the go-to for 'dark' blockbusters, because this movie is such a violent, hopeless affair it's impossible not to appreciate the sheer guts George had in making it.
This is Star Wars where the main character turns evil, kills a bunch of innocent people including children, helps destroy the current world order, and then has his limbs lopped off and is burned alive in a lava pit. Let's see somebody try to top that and still keep a family audience. This makes the sequel trilogy's PG-13 ratings a joke.
Revenge of the Sith is rightly considered one of the best Star Wars movies-even better than some of the originals, if you ask normal people who aren't afraid of being stigmatized on the Internet. This is most likely due to the mature thematic content and the near-Shakespearean story, the depiction of the fall of Anakin Skywalker. Could it have been better handled? Probably. Would we have been better off with a movie in between Attack of the Clones and this? Yes, and I wish we did have a fourth movie. Are the romance scenes still ridiculous? Yes, but there aren't many and the movie is so relentless you don't really notice them. The acting, once again, is really good except for Padme and sometimes Anakin, with the actor who plays Palpatine giving in probably the best performance in the entire series. Anyone who says the sequel trilogy has better acting is joking. The dialogue is the best in the prequels, with the Darth Plagueis speech standing out as extremely well-written, probably the best thing George has written. The movie also legitimizes the other two prequels. Once Order 66 happens everything falls apart, and George gives us a masterclass in how to build up a fictional universe and then tear it to shreds at the end of the story for maximum impact. Compare this to the Force Awakens when a New Republic we know nothing about gets obliterated and we're supposed to be...sad?
Nothing like this has really been done since. It's too bad.