Look Ma! It's full of those new-fangled special effects!

Rating: 6/10 (21 May 2005)

And that, sadly, really does sum up the third, and last of the star wars sextet. It's rare that I'll say you can have too many special effects, but here, I'm afraid it's true. I pity the day when effects companies like ILM manage to do away entirely with the need for actors, because then we'll just get more movies like this, but without even the bad acting to look at.
ROTS is a mess, really. Partly this comes from hammy dialogue and scenes, and partly it comes from being a prisoner of its own "tie-up the loose ends" storyline. But mostly it comes from trying to cram a plot that should have been started from Episode 1 into this, the last film.
Everything feels rushed, from the dialogue and scenes, to the risible acting portrayed in places. Not that the actors have to do much acting, since all they ever seem to do is run around and fight a lot, but the rare instances of character interaction are painful in many cases.
Poor Hayden Christensen! He tries very hard to portray the fall from grace of Anakin and his descent into darkness. But, hampered by the need to do this over the space of only a couple of scenes, there really wasn't much he could do with the part. And the way in which he turns to the dark side? Let's just say that Mark Hamill's portrayal in ROTJ was much more believable and leave it at that.
Also, when Anakin discovers his good buddy Palpatine is a Sith Lord, to say the reaction is half-hearted is doing it a great favour. Imagine your reaction to being told (by the person themselves, whom you came to trust) that they were something like a Nazi death-camp guard who was in charge of the gas supply. Pretty awful, huh? Yet despite this equivalent revelation, and the fact that his real buddies the Jedi had not done him any real harm, you'll understand why Anakin's turning to the dark side is, shall we say, less than believable. Truly Anakin must be the dimmest Jedi around.
And the final battle between Anakin/Darth and Obi-Wan? Well, quite frankly I don't know why they spent so much time on the sword-fighting routines. For a start, by the time you get to see it, you've overloaded on lightsabre action from the numerous other fight scenes by then. And then there's the fact that, thanks to the flashing blades you don't really see much of the skill involved anyhow. And as for the ludicrous places on the lava planet that they enact the fight, it doesn't really grip you as it should.
The one, and only, scene where I actually got a chill run down my spine? The scene where Darth Vader's helmet is put on for the first time. There's a pause, then the familiar Darth breathing sound begins. That was good.
Tying up the loose ends was an obvious task for this film, but many of them are done poorly, such as the business with the droids. Plus, what is NOT explained is how R2-D2 ends up the robotic equivalent of a pensioner in Ep. 4+. In this film not only does he leap about like a demented flea, but he's got more gadgets than James Bond. What happens to all of that by the time Ep 4 comes around? And what was the purpose of showing Chewbacca? Just a cave-in to the fans' demands? The only purpose it served is to show that Yoda and Chewie knew each other. A fact that is irrelevant in the following films.
But the rest? One mind-numbing fight scene after the next. And more effects than you can shake a lightsabre at.
I think its good that Lucas has decided to finish the franchise with this movie. The more he does, the worse they seem to get. Let's call it quits here whilst we can still grit our teeth and enjoy them.