OK but style over substance

Rating: 3/10 (20 May 2005)

Revenge of the Sith Umm, I went in with low expectations, thinking that if there can be just one or two really decent scenes then I will be happy. Did it succeed? Some bits are good. It's genuinely darker, yoda has one or two good moments, some of the fight scenes are OK and Hayden Christianson does have more presence. In the 'night of the long knives' scenes I felt some connection, things where going wrong and you felt the drama and Darth getting angry at the end was an impressive display but overall I think it's a classic example of style over substance, selling the sizzle rather than the sausage itself.
The battle scenes are un-involving. The droids are totally useless, cannon fodder incapable of shooting anything or anyone and uttering cheesy 'uh oh's', so you don't care for them and knowing the clones are all the same and become storm troopers you don't care for them either hence the battles are devoid of any excitement because you really couldn't care less who wins and to be fair the outcome never seems to have any impact on the story. Plenty of lasers, explosions and spinning ships but in the end it's just bangs and flashes and seems almost irrelevant.
R2-D2 seems cool at one moment and the next screaming like a hyperactive child, Sam Jackson corrupts the screen with his presence, you expect him to start shouting and quoting the bible and to be honest isn't good enough an actor to pull it off. You don't feel anything for anakin and padme's relationship. There doesn't seem to be any love or spark between them, although concerned over her future anakin isn't interested in what his loved one says and seems to turn on her remarkably quickly at the end.
The lightsaber battles just seem a blur of flashing light, yes they are going fast but so fast you can't actually see any of the moves unlike maybe the scenes in phantom menace or return of the Jedi.
What is it with George as well that he feels his audience has zero patience and thus every scene needs to be only 1-2 minutes long before we have another elaborate cut to the next scene and some of these scenes are so unnecessary and seem constructed purely to show off some new monster or cityscape. It's like he doesn't have the confidence in his written material so he has to pad out every scene with endless flash bangs to divert your attention from what is being said. He also doesn't have the confidence in his actors, instead of them trying to act angry or show love the scenes need clunky dialogue to telegraph the message to the youngest viewer. "Your thoughts betray you young Jedi" my thoughts? Who needs thoughts when every line is so explanatory that it leaves nothing to the imagination or interpretation. The good thing about the first 3 is the arc of the characters, most of them remained and you saw them through the course of the trilogy. In this it seems George needs to create a neatly disposable bad guy for every episode.
I don't know maybe the whole reason was to highlight how good chapters 4-6 where but coming out of this all I wanted to do was to watch the other 3 and take more attention of Darth Vader.