Oh Anakin! I have lost my will to live and take care of my children!

Rating: 6/10 (5 June 2005)

I saw the original Star Wars when it was released and loved it. I mercifully slept through all the other ones when I took my kids. Today, my youngest finally persuaded me to see ROTS promising me I could once again sleep through it, but I really did want to see the story behind Darth Vader. I had the supreme fortune never having seen all the other ones, just the original and way back when. So, I thought it would be really interesting to see how I would react.
And I will say, love and hate. The love first: I loved the special effects. I thought that they were fun and reminiscent a little of the chase scenes in the original and following the same general action sequence. I can never get enough of really good special effects, especially in space. Hey, I was thrilled by the warp thing, so you can see I am easy to please.
And that's about it for love. Now the hate, that's something else. The acting  oh my gosh, the acting. Yes, I know it's basically an action film and therefore, acting comes secondary. But my gosh, was there really no way that the acting could have been improved? By the third time we watch Anakin and Padme together, my son was going: "here we go again". It was getting so tiresome, watching these two in such great love that Padme would die because she lost the will to live and take care of her children and Anakin would turn to the dark side to prevent Padme from dying. Uh, no, not believable at all. Insulting to our intelligence, really.
A saving grace would be the dissolution of Anakin's values. This could have been involved, complicated, complex and full of moralizing and analysis, and thereby could have been used as a great lesson for kids. But instead, we got a very silly and stupid reason for Anakin's turn to the dark side. My son summed it up with a comment that Anakin was very weak anyway and he was getting weaker with the other prequels so it wasn't so hard to believe he could be so easily convinced. In other words, he wasn't much of a man anyway so big deal. That would've made him a weak Darth Vader  so now I have to watch the original again to see this Darth Vader, whom I loved because he was so strong, in a new, weaker light. How could such a weakling become that huge, menacing Darth Vader?? Implausible. And if Anakin were really stronger, he would have had a much more complex descent into hell, especially if he was prompted more primarily by the pursuit of power, which he wasn't really  it seemed just an adjunct to his ridiculous excuse of dreams. I am so sorry that I was disappointed since that was what I stayed awake for in this movie.
The Chancellor was good but it was so obvious he was on the dark side. You have to wonder at how this movie is just for the masses which is fine but I think the masses are just a little brighter than that. There were also no funny parts  moments of mirth to lift the darkness, maybe a little sarcasm here and there.
I found the pacing slow, and in triplicate. Everything seemed to move in a sequence, to be repeated in a more evil or action way each time. For example, Anakin and Padme yapping, the Jedi talking, fighting. Then, once again. Then again. Even the fight scenes seem to happen in bursts of three, which gets tiring after a while because it isn't sustained. Eventually, the empty promises lower expectations and that's what I think finally happened.
I liked the film in general, but I wouldn't say it was the brainteaser of the century. But then, this is mostly for kids, so what should I be expecting I guess. 4 for special effects, 2 for story and acting.