Wow

Rating: 9/10 (19 May 2005)

The Star Wars franchise has always proved to be visually stunning and Revenge of the Sith definitely keeps up this trend. However, this film has something the the previous two films did not have, an element of inner conflict, of pain, the Revenge of the Sith is a tragedy that at least starts to get back to the ways of the original trilogy.
Over the years I have realized that George Lucas could not write dialog to save his life and this film is no exception, but lets face it none of us go to see Star Wars to hear David Mamet quality screen writing. And, even though there isn't much in the way of dialog it was still effective enough for the sake of story telling. That was the strength of this film was the complexity and power of the story which I actually think could be the best of all six films rivaled possibly by the Empire Strikes Back. In the last two films Lucas was too much on the side of cheap flashy entertainment with no real though, Sith gives us a study of humanity, temptation, desperation, devotion, and betrayal.
There is very little that I can complain about in the way of cinematography. HD has proved itself time and time again, especially in Sith and the recently released Sin City. The only problems that ever came up is there is occasionally a slight blur of the image with slow pan shots that you don't get with film until the camera's really jerking around. Still, this was only every once in a while and I was probably the only person that would care. Still, there were several scene's that were incredibly well lit, particularly the scene in which Palpaten tells Aniken about the powers that the Dark Side can offer. There were some interesting dramatic lighting techniques used in this film that really made it interesting to look at.
The acting was better in this film than it was in the previous two (thats not saying much). Of course they were inhibited a little by the weak dialog but they still did a good job with it. After seeing the last film I never thought that Hayden Christensen would have the talent to develop the Aniken character well enough to show his transition to the dark side, I'm pleased to say that I was wrong. I still wish they were able to hold onto Gary Oldman for the voice of General Grevous, I think he would have been able to bring something interesting to the character but what are you going to do. Portman has been giving several good performances recently and she managed to keep it going here but the stand out of the cast for me was McDirmand as Palpatine, he was very articulate and very convincing, it was truly a great performance.
This is recommended strongly to any fan of the Star Wars franchise. This film might actually be one of the top three of all six of the films and it blew the previous two prequels out of the water. I saw the first showing possible at midnight this morning, I plan to see it several more times before it goes on DVD.