Much better but still not great

Rating: 6/10 (25 June 2005)

I've always regarded the Star Wars films as mostly enjoyable special effects driven action flicks and never been particularly impressed by the story. Episode three certainly doesn't disappoint in that regard. It's much better than episodes 1 and 2 but is still let down by a rather simplistic plot, occasionally awful script and poor acting although Hayden Christensen is marginally better than he was in episode 2. He does tend to get worse as the film proceeds though and overacts terribly during his transformation into Vader. The scene where he is told of the death of his wife is laughably unconvincing. The worst acting in my opinion though is from Natalie Portman. She is truly awful and most of her scenes with Christensen just made me cringe.
Annakin's metamorphosis into Darth Vader isn't very convincing in my eyes and the overall plot is fairly weak although the tie up with episode 4 is handled pretty well.
The special effects are of course excellent although you get the impression that Lucas is just showing off at times. The space battle at the start, for instance, looked just a bit too cluttered.
In a more generous mood I would give this 7/10 but I'm going for 6.