Revenge of the Sith -- or Revenge by boredom for anyone who watches Revenge of the Sith

Rating: 3/10 (20 February 2009)

"Revenge of the Sith" has been hailed as another great Star Wars film by many, but I believe that it ranks as one of the weakest. The computerized special effects have been applauded in other reviews, but I personally found them dull. The reality is that so many movies are using computer special effects these days that film-makers really have to come up with truly original computer images in order to compete in this market. James Cameron managed to stay ahead of the curve with Avatar's breathtaking images, but the movie scenes in "Revenge of the Sith" look like they came straight out of a computer video came from the 1990s. As a result, I could not really believe in any of the situations which the characters found themselves in. Instead, it looked like I was watching Annakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen), Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), and the other characters surrounded by computer special effects.
Aside from the visuals, this film also fails on the screenplay level. Annakin is depicted as an annoying, arrogant, and whining teenager by Hayden Christensen, with the result that we are not too upset when he is lured to the dark side. Padme (Natalie Portman) is just boring as Annakin's lover, which proves that Natalie Portman should not be cast as a love interest in movies. Ewan McGregor, on the other hand, has the thankless task of trying to fill the legendary Alec Guinness' shoes as Obi-Wan. McGregor fails to do this and perhaps was never capable of bringing the same gravitas to the role of Obi-Wan as Alec Guinness did. As a result, the "Revenge of the Sith" has uninteresting characters stuck in a predictable plot with nothing fresh in it. The only actor doing anything fresh, in fact, is Ian McDiarmid as the Chancellor Palpatine – who is cloak and dagger character. I was honestly hoping to see a lot more of McDiarmid than the other characters. Yet unfortunately, the less interesting good guys hogged most of the screen time.
I suspect that many people will go to see this Star Wars instalment, because they are Star Wars fans. They may even give it a pass, because they grew up loving the Star Wars characters and want to see them again. Yet on a more objective level, this movie offers nothing fresh or interesting save for McDiarmid's performance.