Way overrated

Rating: 5/10 (22 May 2005)

I was really surprised to see that the average rating for this film was 8.3 after more than 20,000 votes had been posted. More than half of voters gave it the full 10 stars! I can't believe that 10,000 people thought that there was nothing wrong with this film. The only thing it has got going for it is great special effects, some of the best I've ever seen, but what about dialogue, acting or plot.
Hayden Christensen plays Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader, the central, and therefore most important, character in the movie. This is the kind of role that every young unknown actor would kill for because for people watching the original trilogy all those years ago, Darth Vader was a superstar. A sword-wielding masked man with superhuman powers and a cool cape. Whichever actor stepped in to become the face of Darth Vader was stepping into fame that he didn't have to earn for himself because it came built-in. All Christensen had to do was put in an OK performance in order to become relatively famous but instead he acted his way out of the hall of fame and into the hall of mediocrity. Lucas had the opportunity here to make a star out of somebody but he didn't choose wisely.
As for the already established actors in this film who have proved themselves to be very capable in the past, McGregor, Jackson and Portman, for some reason I found myself cringing as they reeled off some of the cheesiest dialogue I've heard since before I gave up watching daytime soaps when I was 15. I know these guys are good actors so why did this movie make them look so bad? Ian McDiarmid was a saving grace, even though he also had some pretty thin material to work with.
This movie was of course written and directed by George Lucas. I watched some of the extras on the DVD of the previous episode and I saw an entourage of people around Lucas who agreed with everything he said, never questioned his opinions and laughed at every joke he made no matter how void of humour it actually was. He was surrounded by yes men. It was obvious he was in complete control. He provided the funding, he directed and he wrote the screenplay. What he needed was someone who was willing to say to him 'George, you've created a special effects masterpiece but the story has no excitement or intrigue and the dialogue is dull, clichéd and extremely cheesy'.
10 stars? Unbelievable!