Okay, everybody's weighing in on this one, so here I am. Yes, it was better than I or II, but that ain't saying much.
What they did right:
The pacing and editing are waaaay better. This movie clips along as a thoroughly engrossing speed. Most of the dialogue-heavy scenes blip by as quickly as possible, and make way for the next action sequence. The movie starts with a big space fight, ends with a big lightsabre duel, and has lots of action in between. In fact, my guess is that someone in the production realised that the 'dramatic' parts of the I and II just didn't work, so he/she/they decided that III would be better as a straight sci-fi/action movie. All the rest of it became secondary.
Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious' dialogue, rumoured to have been tweaked by none other than Tom Stoppard, is much improved, and you can actually pursuade yourself to think that his attempt to 'turn' Anikin is more than half believable. On paper, anyway, it makes perfect sense; it's just in the excecution that we lose something. I have to give kudos to Ian McDiarmid for just chewing the scenery as much as possible. He goes 'big' with his acting, and it pays off. What the prequels have forgotten is that, despite high budgets and mythological underpinnings, Star Wars is, at heart, a great big space opera. If more of its production staff had realised this, and respected the material for what it is, the movies would probably be a lot better.
What they do wrong:
The 'romantic' dialogue is so bad that you'll be wishing that Anikin would go back to talking about how "sand is hard." Reportedly, Christianson and Portman can actually act, but you'll see little to none of that in this movie. Portman is barely in it at all, and basically just runs around in an incredibly fake-looking pregnancy insert, and though Anikin is far less annoying and childish in this movie, Christianson still doesn't have the talent to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The only actor who manages to elevate that awful dialogue to being somewhat emotionally important is Ewan McGregor, who's "You were my brother..." speach is actually kinda, you know, moving. A little. It's ironic that Obi-Wan and Anikin's relationship has more feeling in it than Anikin's to Padme, but there you go.
This movie does give us the money shot we've been waiting a good six years for: Anikin is fitted with extensive cybernetic gear and transformed into Darth Vader, as we know and fear him. However, it's really not the great big, emotional 'capper' to the Star Wars story that it could have been, and indeed should have been. All in all, this is a decent enough little F/X action flick, but that's about it.
Posted by orion at May 28, 2005 7:34 PM