Acting? What acting?

Rating: 3/10 (5 November 2005)

Well, I have to say this was disappointing. I'm trying to allow for the fact that this is the summation of a set of prequels, and how interesting can a prequel be when you know the final disposition of the characters? I accept you have to allow for fact that you're watching a story the outcome of which you know.
It's the film itself which disappoints, I found the acting wooden, the dialogue ridiculous and the continuity beyond credibility. There are some good actors in this film, Portman and Christensen excepted, and I expected the professionals to at least provide some sense of character, instead they seemed as comfortable in their roles as a bunch of extras in a local village drama society. I can expect this of Christensen and Portman but not from real actors.
I imagine a lot of it is the dialogue they are given, it's stilted wooden and false. I doubt that anyone could put in a good performance with dialogue that's so stilted and formal. I got no sense of relationship between Anikin and Kenobi or between Anikin and the woman he supposedly loved.
The continuity left me breathless. I am not someone who's followed everything in the "Expanded Universe". I need a little bit more than a few paragraphs scrolling across space to let me know what's happening, but even more I need to know who the characters are. In this film characters come and go without explanation. I can only imagine that it was a film that was written while it was being filmed and ended up at around six hours and then had to be cut, inexpertly, down. Unfortunately this doesn't allow you to remove characters who are extraneous to the plot you've decided to end up with so they march on as spear carriers, have their 10 seconds but are then mentioned in other scenes as being important. The classic example of this is Jimmy Smits, a great actor whose character is pretty important (he is after all the adoptive father of Luke) yet we see no development; he's "around a bit during" the film and then suddenly important enough to rescue Yoda and Kenobi and adopt Luke!
I did however enjoy the special effects, there was a lot to look at as the plot failed to unfold and the actors read their lines. All in all I think Lucas' best work was in the first three films. This one and the two preceding prequels are poor efforts which feel like showcases for ILM's work and not feature films.