Star Wars: Episode III, Revenge of the Sith

Star Wars Revenge of the Sith is hard to review and classify this film because it is a film weighed down with all of the story and characters and expectations that went before it. In fact I didn’t put this film on my top ten of they year because I was concerned about setting expectations too high and being disappointed. But now the final installment of Star Wars is here with all of the hoopla accompanying it. I have to say that Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith delivers on many of the levels it promises and is a truly satisfying end to the Star Wars saga.


Now Revenge of the Sith is not to be easily compared with the other Star Wars films, it more resembles Empire in its mood and that is a difficult thing to do in a children’s movie. So that is where we will begin, Star Wars Revenge of the Sith is not a kiddie movie. There are some very adult themes here in the final film about Anakin’s transformation into Darth Vader. There is a slaughter of youngling that though done off camera does leave a trail of little bodies that could keep children up at night. There is of course also Anakin’s final battle where he is left charred and disfigured by his mentor only to be rebuilt into Darth Vader as we know him.


At times this film reminded me of everything from High Noon to Frankenstein and any movie that draws so deeply from our collective cinema history can’t be that poorly thought out. I would have to say that if the first two films in the new trilogy felt like they were made with only half a workable script the final film feels like the script was three quarters of the way done when filming completed. And that is the film’s undoing once again, poor script work in what should have been truly heatwrenching scenes took the audience out of the film. Unfortunately for her, most of these scenes fell to Natalie Portman who seems to be uncomfortable with her role and struggles with the wooden dialogue. The biggest disappointment in the film is the lack of chemistry between Portman and Christensen upon which the crux of the story is based.


If the love story is the most disappointing part of the story then Ewan McGregor and his take on Obi Wan Kenobi has to be the best part. McGregor seems to finally have gotten the hang of Kenobi, or perhaps Kenobi has finally gotten the hang of himself. Gone is the sullen and wooden Obi Wan of the first film replaced with a fluid fighter with a wan sense of humor. Here we see the character that grew into the wizened mentor portrayed by Alec Guinness so many years ago.


The film begins with one of the biggest and best spaceship battle scenes ever put to film. The ships dance in and out of one another’s way while trying to blast holes through each other. The editing is tight and the characters dialogue is functional and paced within the tight rhythm of the flying. The plan is simple, Anakin and Obi Wan have been recalled from the Outer Rim to rescue Supreme Chancellor Palpatine from the clutches of Count Dooku and General Grevious by storming a heavily fortified command ship. Once on board the situation doesn’t improve any as Anakin battles Dooku in a duel quite familiar to those who have watched Jedi, but with differing results. It is hard to follow Anakin’s later slide when he has already shown his propensity to behave as the Chancelor’s lap dog, but the film gives less notice to Anakin’s dispatching of Dooku than perhaps it should. After yet another spectacular crash landing the story is set to slow down and get to the business of forwarding character development.


And so the film does. The very next thing we learn is that Anakin is feeling left out by the other Jedi and that he and Padme have a child on the way. Now it could be said that at Anakin’s age he feels a little trapped by being a father and his response would tend to confirm that. I’m sure there are a slue of studies just waiting in the wings about men’s desires to avoid the traps of responsibility by focusing on business or having anxious dreams that their firstborn’s birth will have drastic and tragic consequences. Of course usually the birth of a child sets a couple’s world on its ear, not an entire galaxy, but this is a movie and Lucas likes to do things on a grand scale.


The rest of the film is in anticipation of two things, Anakin and Obi Wan’s final light saber duel with each other, and Anakin’s rise as the mechanical nightmare Darth Vader. Of course there are a lot of things that happen on the way, mostly involving political treachery, the killing of scores of Jedi, and a bunch of cute stuff by R2-D2 and Yoda. Oh, and probably the best death scene in ages with the master of getting stabbed, shot, and now electrocuted, Samuel L. Jackson. Jackson has made a career playing tragically cool characters. Here his Mace Windu is more of a gloom and doom complainer who has spent the last three films warning everyone about this kid named Skywalker and waiting for his inevitable death. And this death does not disappoint. Mace gets it in a wonderful battle between himself and Palpatine that ends in a surprising though not unexpected way. Palpatine himself is a study, a deft politician and Sith Lord McDiarmid plays him as a shrew manipulator fragile and pleading for help one moment and cackling with rage and mad power the next.


I won’t say anything more about the plot to the film except that there really aren’t many surprises. But then again there weren’t expected to be. We already know which characters are around for A New Hope and which aren’t. We know the parentage of Luke and Leia and how they were raised. Revenge of the Sith is more about enjoying the ride than it is about the destination since we know that it will end on the desert planet of Tattoine. The film is visually stunning and it develops the characters and the political intrigue in ways far beyond the first two movies. In fact it seems as if there is almost too much material here for one film which begs the question, who couldn’t some of this replaced the filler in the first two films of the new trilogy? I suppose it is a question that only Lucas himself can answer. For the rest of us, we will have to be content that the story has come full circle and we are now exactly where we ought to be, firmly entrenched in Lucas’ galaxy.


The third Star Wars is as enchanting as any film out this summer and deserving of the Star Wars name in a way that the last two films did not fully realize. There are many graphic battle scenes that may be too intense for small children though as always Lucas keeps things bloodless. Star Wars is a feast of music and motion and color punctuated by the occasional dialogue. More than anything Star Wars Revenge of the Sith is a satisfying ride that ties up all of the decade old questions of how the galaxy found itself in such trouble in Star Wars a New Hope.