Best of the prequels

Rating: 6/10 (5 April 2009)

The Clone War is coming to an end, or so the Jedi think. Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi rescue Chancellor Palpatine from the Droid General Greivous, in an outstanding space battle. After the mission, Padme tells Anakin that she is pregnant, which makes things a little complicated as they were supposed to keep their marriage a secret, but their Euphoria is cut short when Anakin has dreams of Padme dying in childbirth. Anakin's faith in the Jedi is wearing thin, from their insistence that Anakin must let go of his fears to their lack of faith in Chancellor Palpatine. Palpatine starts to drive a deep wedge between Anakin and the Jedi by making him his personal representative on the Jedi council and by trying to convince him the Jedi are trying to take control of the Republic. The Jedi are deeply suspicious of the Chancellor and therefore Anakin by default, because of their friendship. Then Palpatine drives the final nail in the coffin by promising Anakin that together they could prevent Padme's death through some mystical force mumbo jumbo.
Revenge of the Sith is the most action packed Star Wars movie. It has an outstanding full scale space battle in the beginning, the most lightsaber duels, and plenty of blasters. Lucas demonstrates he is still an excellent editor. The Star Wars prequel with the most content never drags. I must admit I wish Anakin and Obi-Wan's duel was not interrupted so much by Yoda and Sidious's duel, but that's the only criticism I have of the editing. The scene where the Jedi are betrayed is heartbreaking. If I had any criticism of the final duel itself it's that there are so many lightsaber duels some of its importance is diminished.
Ultimately, I find Sith to be the best of the prequels because something actually happens that I care about. Sith is the only prequel where I can really adequately sum up the plot without going to IMDb to refresh my memory. Phantom Menace's plot had almost no relevance to the story arc and Episode II was just so slow it's hard to endure.
Ewan McGregor once again proves to be the best actor. He has this sense of authority that enables us to take his scenes more seriously than the rest of the cast. Ian McDiarmid gives a very good performance as Palpatine, at least before he becomes deformed. He creates a two-faced character who acts like a sympathetic victim. Anakin is too easily duped, but ultimately Lucas had to make his turn a tragedy. There was room for improvement but it was better than making him a border-line evil character. If there was one thing they did wrong, it was making Anakin so tortured in Episode II. His digression in III doesn't really feel like a change, since he's just acting the same way he did in the last movie.
The film suffers from bad dialog but most of the actors seemed so into it that it wasn't a big problem, except for Natalie Portman. One of my biggest problems is Padme going from a hero to a zero. All she does is stand around and cry. She loses all of her leadership qualities that she had in the first two movies because Lucas was hell bent on making a clichéd Greek tragedy. There are deleted scenes on the DVD Bonus Disc that show Padme's involvement in the formation of the Rebel Alliance, and I think they would have helped the movie somewhat. Her death is rather pathetic as well, because Lucas wanted to end the series with no loose ends.
McDiarmid really hammed it up once he turned completely evil and his acting is unintentionally laughable in these scenes. His make-up in Return of the Jedi was a million times better too. Finally, Samuel L. Jackson was just out of place in the prequels. He's too famous for the role and his character was not written well to begin with.
Aside from that, Sith is a very entertaining film and the prequel that is the most fun to watch over and over again.