This is what passes for a good movie?

Rating: 4/10 (1 August 2013)

I am no stranger to the "Star Wars" films. I have seen all six of them and even the infamous "Clone Wars" movie from 2008. This terrifies me. I can understand people claiming this is the best of the prequels, but then there is all that talk about how it is as good or even better than "Empire Strikes Back". How is this film that popular? I do not understand.
Let me start off with a few positives. This is the first film in the prequels where I have no questions from from the opening crawl and I understand what is going on and what is at stake and why I should care. Next, it downplays the romance element from "Attack of the Clones" and the dialog has improved quite a bit.
Now for the bad. The acting is terrible with the exception of Ewan McGregor, Ian McDiarmid, Frank Oz, and to a lesser extent, Anthony Daniels and Jimmy Shmits (two actors of minor/supporting characters might I add). Hayden Christensen does improve from his performance from "Attack of the Clones" but it all feels overplayed. Natalie Portman has a few good scenes but is overall bad in this film. Samuel L. Jackson is very monotone in this film, as is Christopher Lee. So with that, a majority of the main cast does not do very well in the acting department.
A lot of things in the film are over or underdone. Most of the acting and story is underdone, the ending and the dark tone are overdone. It seems like to be a dark film, Lucas believes that it has to be PG-13. I'm sure that is not the case but it feels that way. The ending is more like a soap opera season finale than the actual climax to a film series with a plot element like Padme losing the will to live and a race against the clock to save the babies.
A problem arises with the character of Anakin Skywalker. In the last film, it might have been understandable that he was whiny and arrogant as he was younger and less mature, but at this point he has been fighting the Clone Wars for several years and it has lessened, but only by a small amount. He still acts whiny and arrogant, claiming the council is holding him back from being a Jedi Master. And this is the guy we are supposed to feel sympathy for when he tragically falls to the dark side?
You have no sympathy for Anakin and thus, you do not want to route for him in this film. To make matters worse, it isn't even one of those things where you want to route for the villains instead. You do not want to route for anyone. If you do not want to route for any of the characters than the film is boring, plain and simple.
Once again, I have to ask: This passes for a good movie?