Laughably bad writing, direction and acting

Rating: 5/10 (24 October 2008)

I was hoping for a grand end of the prequel trilogy of my favorite movies when I was growing up. I still remember being a 10 year old kid sitting in the Colosseum movie theater in Oslo being totally at awe in watching Return of the Jedi back in 1983. It has always been the greatest movie experience of my life and it always will be. I now think that Empire is even better (I was too young to see it in 1980) and have bought the original trilogy on VHS, Laserdisc and DVD (and I will buy them when they come to Blu-ray). This prequel trilogy was just such a waste. All the talent in front of and behind the camera, except Lucas, was wasted on these movies. I have written a review on the first prequel movie and I must say now that I feel even worse about it, episode 2 and this movie. I have seen all three of the prequel movies several times now and I must say that they contain so much clichés that it is almost frightening. I cannot say how many times I cringe when I see these horrors that are disguised as Star Wars movies. When I see the pod race in the first movie I keep thinking that I am seeing a sort of desert live-action Wipe-Out race.
But I will keep my comments to this movie. All aspects of the movie are such drivel. The worst things are the script and the direction, both by Lucas. The last movie George Lucas directed before episode 1 is the 1977 Star Wars. That's over 20 years of not directing any movie. His third time around he is still bad. It seems like the movie is all over the place. I read another review on this site and he was totally right when he wrote that the wipes were all over the place. This bad editing is the result of a bad script that needed trimming and believability. Not to mention the truly horrible dialog.
What everyone was waiting for, Anakin's seduction into the dark side, was done so badly. Hayden Christensen's ham acting didn't help, but with a superior director (basically any of Hollywood's good directors would do a better job) the acting could have been improved on. When Anakin kills Count Dooku in the beginning of the movie I keep thinking "That's it? No more remorse about killing another human being in cold blood?". We see no conscience at work at all. Anakin's seduction by Palpatine to the dark side is also very unbelievably done. When Anakin cuts off Windu's arm Palpatine screams "Power! Unlimited power!!" and throws lightning at him so he is thrown far into the city. Can't Anakin see him for what he is, a manipulative, deceitful evil man that is behind everything that has transpired all his life? No. All he says is "What have I done?". Everything Palpatine has been pretending to care about has been a lie. His mentor is the very evil he has been fighting all his life. Does he reject him because of this? No. OK. He wants to save Padme's life, but how can he know that this ability about saving people from death wasn't a lie too? The transformation from good to bad is done so badly. It was very cool to hear the great James Earl Jones as the voice of Darth Vader when he put on the famous suit, but I cringed at the the dialog spoken. The romance between Anakin and Padme is also handled like a bad high school play with acting and dialog to match. The technical side of the movie is second to none. The effects and sound design are really great.
When I was a teenager I kept thinking about how Anakin Skywalker had turned to evil since he was really a good person. How can a good person willingly do all these terrible things? He was my favorite villain of all and he still is. I think I have to pretend like these horrible prequel movies never was made. I just hope that the original trilogy will appear on Blu-ray in their original incarnations and not with all the out-of-place digital CGI work what were inserted into the movies back in 1997. This movie was just a letdown that I think it is better to think that it and the two previous movies weren't made at all.