revenge of the sh#t

Rating: 4/10 (2 October 2005)

Is it a coincidence that Sith is an anagram of sh#t? The final instalment of the new trilogy of star wars films arrives on a wave of hype and expectation and leaves on a star destroyer heading for planet boring in the fall flat nebular. Badly directed, scripted and acted this film relies on CGI like crutches to hold itself up. I had to keep reminding myself to be objective not to let this movie off the hook just because its star wars and I love star wars. That's what I did with the first two, but now with hindsight I can safely say that they too were not really that good. But this film takes the biscuit. We all know the story, Darth did it, but that doesn't mean Lucas should go ahead and make it so bland, like paint by numbers in space. Don't get me wrong there was the odd little set piece that was good but overall after a 27-year wait it was well not really worth it. We were promised so much and given so little, Wookies fighting? Only a bit and when they did why did they all do Tarzan impressions? R2-d2 was I'm sure there for comedy effect, it became like carry on star wars as every time something was about too happen he let out a high pitched robotic ooohh. Anakin's transition into Darth Vader just kind of happened, the build up sort of fell down. There was more emotion at the hint of his turning in clones when he slaughtered the sand people and admitted it to padmé. Here the emperor just promises him the ability to save her life (even though she may or may not be dying) and apparently that does it, off he spiral on his evil path of destruction. Mace Windu who we were promised and I quote would 'not go out like a bitch' did just that. Windu out the window. Lucas seems to have an uncanny knack of producing interesting villains who are all killed really easily (Darth maul in menace etc) and here is no exception. Dooku goes first followed quickly by grievous I know Jedi's are hard but these enemies are just too easy. Based on them they should have won. I can't help but feel disappointment on seeing the best screen villain in film history reduced to a caricature as Darth breaks his shackles at the end and stumbles forward like a new born deer using his legs for the first time, wobbling he cries nooooooooo! Which is exactly how we felt after the film (just without the camp moves).