Better than Jedi

Rating: 8/10 (2 March 2008)

On first viewing in 2005, Lucas' sixth Star Wars epic looked like a welcome return to form after the depressing embarrassment of his turgid (almost unwatchable!) Phantom Menace and clunky (only marginally superior) Attack of the Clones. Seen again for a second and third time, Sith is clearly a movie unjustly shut out of IMDb's Top 250. Amazingly, the poorly scripted, Ewok-plagued Return of the Jedi continues to poll alongside The Big Sleep, Wizard of Oz and High Noon! Yes, Jedi has some great moments (Jabba's asphyxiation, the Emperor's arrival on the Death Star, the speeder bike chase!) but, for my money, Episode III outpaces its patchy 1983 "sequel" in almost every department. At no point does this movie slacken: from its thrilling, vertiginous opening space battle to the passionate, skilfully composed light-sabre duel on the lava planet. And with the story darkening, adult themes to rival those of Episode V once again creep into what are...supposed to be just kids' films? There could even be said to be acting! Ian McDiarmid lets rip with another terrifically camp performance as Palpatine (the seduction of Hayden!) and shows us, as he did in Jedi, how sensitivity to intonation can elevate even the most sophomoric dialogue. Christensen is better (or just older?). And Lucas at last manages to coax a passable performance from McGregor, who appears to shrug off his boredom with the green screen experience. But what really makes this movie is Lucas' direction over the closing half hour. The simple inter-cutting of Anakin's Frankenstein-like reconstruction into Vader with a hospital sequence of Padme's death giving birth to the twins, shows a lightness of touch and broad Old Hollywood emotionalism missing since the truly classic Episodes IV and V. The last line of dialogue is 3PO uttering "Oh,no!" before we cut to iconic images of Padme's funeral, a first glimpse of imperial TIE fighters circling the Death Star, and baby Luke's delivery to Uncle Owen and Aunty Beru under the binary Tatooinese sunset. Oh, and let's not forget John Williams...quietly reprising almost every Star Wars melody including, for a few exquisite seconds, the lovely "Padme's Destiny" in counterpoint to Vader's "Imperial March". A minor-key classic?