The best of the prequels

Rating: 7/10 (27 March 2015)

I'll be honest, I actually really do like this film as it does seem to make some semblance of sense, and removes a lot of the problems that hampered the previous two movies. There's no stupid comedy, there's no unbelievable love story, there's no convoluted plot that tries to make out like it's telling us more than it actually is but is in fact telling us less, I dare say this one's plot is very A > B in that respect.
So what's the jingo? For reasons explained in the Clone Wars Cartoon Series (give it a watch, the later episodes are actually very entertaining), the Droid Army has launched a massive assault on the Republic homeworld of Coruscant and kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine. Obi-Wan and Anakin go off to save him, and in the process Anakin kills the adversary that took his arm in the last movie, Count Dooku, giving momentarily into his anger. After rescuing him, the pair are split up, Obi-Wan going in pursuit of the evil Droid leader General Grievous (as bland a name as ever), whilst Anakin stays home and doesn't really do much, apart from allow himself be manipulated by Chancellor Palpatine who starts to turn him against his friends on the council, eventually revealing who he really is (even though Count Dooku pretty much did that in the last one, but apparently the Jedi aren't too observant).
As said, the plot to this movie is very A > B in its conception, seeing as the poster, the adverts, the trailers all gave away that by the end of this movie Anakin was going to become Darth Vader. What goes on in between is fairly robust to my mind, the motivations are fairly understandable, apart from one or two such as Anakin's very sudden turn to the Dark Side and murder of Mace Windu, and a few of his outbursts prior to this. I'd say things only really start to make full and 100% sense when you get to the end of the movie after Anakin has turned to the Dark Side, as simply enough it's Emperor Palpatine's bidding for him to go out and murder the Jedi and thus take uninterrupted and full control of the Galaxy by way of an unrealistically submissive Senate.
As said, the love story has been largely cut down, although the love dialogue that remains is pretty painful and without any semblance of human emotion. The comedy is fairly genuine, with some of the jokes being made getting a chuckle out of me (and I'm really quite a humorous person). The acting is still very wooden, especially from the leads, with only Ian McDiarmid as Emperor Palpatine seeming to have any fun with his role.
The CGI however has vastly improved, and is really quite fun to watch. Although the fight scene towards the end really does overstay its welcome, it's very impressive to watch the work that went into this movie, together with John Williams' incredible soundtrack, is quite a buzz.
But on the whole, I would only really recommend this film as something you watch on a cold and rainy Saturday Afternoon when you just want to turn your brain off. A fairly standard movie, but enjoyable nonetheless.