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Director: George Lucas
Year: 2005
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 2 hours, 20 minutes
The Clone Wars are coming to an end. During a mission to rescue Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) decapitates a defeated Darth Tyranus (Christopher Lee). Upon returning to Courasant, he becomes closer and closer to the Chancellor. He has also just been told his wife Padme (Natalie Portman) is pregnant. Fears of his wife's death trouble his thoughts and dreams, and Palpatine convinces Anakin he can help save her, and as Palpatine grants Anakin greater and greater power and status, he slowly convinces him the Jedi are planning to overthrow the Republic. This leads Anakin down a path to the Dark Side.
"Revenge of the Sith" is the final installment in the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy. It is also by far the best film of the three prequels, in our opinion. The movie, once again, is still an almost entirely CGI production, but somehow, it manages too look much cleaner than the previous two films, well, for the most part. Did computer generated graphics really make that much progress in either 3 or 6 years? This story here is actually very exciting and is filled with many entertaining action sequences. We really enjoy watching Anakin slip further and further towards the Dark Side of the force, even if it means watching Hayden Christensen with his scowling teenager look. Anakin's inevitable transformation into Darth Vader is full of obviously dark and anger-ridden, and even comes with some uncomfortable tasks as this is the first Star Wars movie with a PG-13 rating. By today's rigid standards, it definitely shows. Though there are a lot of excellent battle scenes and we enjoy the darker tone overall, there are a number of drawbacks here, the biggest being, once again, the scenes between Padme and Anakin. What once was a powerful, freethinking woman has now been reduced to a pining, doe-eyed girl. It doesn't help that there is still virtually no chemistry between Anakin and Padme, and it's hard to believe his undying love for her was his whole reason Anakin chose to turn to the Dark Side. This lost love attitude leads to the infamous Darth Vader "Nooooooo" scene at the end of the film, which just seems out of character for Vader, who killed a room full of children without batting and eye or thinking twice. While we find this scene funny in hindsight, it's corny as hell and doesn't fit. This installment also contains many numerous and epic lightsaber battles between Palpatine and Mace Windu, Palpatine and Yoda, and the final showdown climactic battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan. Though this battle starts off great, it runs into trouble around midway through the fight, when George Lucas in all in infinite wisdom thought, "hey! You know what this awesome scene needs? More horrible constructed and implausible CGI!" For the third straight movie, nobody wanted to tell Lucas that he should have reigned it in just a tad because having two characters jump from floating platform to floating rock to floating debris over an ocean of lava was just about 10 steps too far. Overall, though, this is an extremely enjoyable film and a much needed step away up from the Binks-ian previous two films. Like most true Star Wars fans, we prefer the original trilogy, but "Revenge of the Sith" will do in a pinch.
"Revenge of the Sith" is the final installment in the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy. It is also by far the best film of the three prequels, in our opinion. The movie, once again, is still an almost entirely CGI production, but somehow, it manages too look much cleaner than the previous two films, well, for the most part. Did computer generated graphics really make that much progress in either 3 or 6 years? This story here is actually very exciting and is filled with many entertaining action sequences. We really enjoy watching Anakin slip further and further towards the Dark Side of the force, even if it means watching Hayden Christensen with his scowling teenager look. Anakin's inevitable transformation into Darth Vader is full of obviously dark and anger-ridden, and even comes with some uncomfortable tasks as this is the first Star Wars movie with a PG-13 rating. By today's rigid standards, it definitely shows. Though there are a lot of excellent battle scenes and we enjoy the darker tone overall, there are a number of drawbacks here, the biggest being, once again, the scenes between Padme and Anakin. What once was a powerful, freethinking woman has now been reduced to a pining, doe-eyed girl. It doesn't help that there is still virtually no chemistry between Anakin and Padme, and it's hard to believe his undying love for her was his whole reason Anakin chose to turn to the Dark Side. This lost love attitude leads to the infamous Darth Vader "Nooooooo" scene at the end of the film, which just seems out of character for Vader, who killed a room full of children without batting and eye or thinking twice. While we find this scene funny in hindsight, it's corny as hell and doesn't fit. This installment also contains many numerous and epic lightsaber battles between Palpatine and Mace Windu, Palpatine and Yoda, and the final showdown climactic battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan. Though this battle starts off great, it runs into trouble around midway through the fight, when George Lucas in all in infinite wisdom thought, "hey! You know what this awesome scene needs? More horrible constructed and implausible CGI!" For the third straight movie, nobody wanted to tell Lucas that he should have reigned it in just a tad because having two characters jump from floating platform to floating rock to floating debris over an ocean of lava was just about 10 steps too far. Overall, though, this is an extremely enjoyable film and a much needed step away up from the Binks-ian previous two films. Like most true Star Wars fans, we prefer the original trilogy, but "Revenge of the Sith" will do in a pinch.
My Rating: 8/10
BigJ's Rating: 8/10
IMDB's Rating: 7.7/10
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 79%
Do we recommend this movie: Yes!
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To see our review of "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace," click here.
To see our review of "Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones," click here.
To see our review of "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope," click here.
To see our review of "Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back," click here.
To see our review of "Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi," click here.
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