Last night Charlene and I went to the 9:45 showing of Revenge of the Sith, the final episode in the new trilogy, and the bridging story between the new trilogy and the original one. If it had to stand on its own, it would be a bad movie, however as a Star Wars movie, it was pretty good (ham fisted dialogue, weak performances, and all).
What I liked:
There's just so much going on, every scene has a ton of little details, and you're caught up in wonder all the time watching the little things. Little droids flying around, cool creatures in the background, architectural details.
The little things. Small, subtle things like little lines thrown out, the fact that Threepio can pilot a ship, Anakin's fighter prowess, the combat droids are still cool, R2's comic timing (that little droid is friggin' hilarious).
It's fast, probably the fastest of all six movies with plot points racing by at hyperspeed.
Yoda; Best…little…dude…ever.
Anakin's performance, he was smoldering, he was angry, you could tell he was conflicted. The love stuff was crappy…but what did you expect? Lucas' love story always sucks.
The colour pallette; Reds and blacks in the end, Greens and browns in the middle. Greys at the beginning.
What a mess Anakin becomes. He falls apart, both mentally and then physically. Loved it.
Rise Lord Vader. Enough said.
General Grevious; Cool looking bad guy.
What I didn't like:
General Grevious; He was AWESOME in the Clone Wars cartoon. In the movie he's kind of a chump, and the wheezing, hacking, and coughing is just weak.
The love story, and particularly the chemistry between Hayden and Natalie Portman. She's actually a fairly talented actress, with two brilliant performances last year (Garden State and Closer), how she could be so wooden in this move is more of a testament to George Lucas' inabilty to direct actors than a testament to her ability as an actress.
The performances: Like I said George Lucas is a great technical director, but an awful director of actors.
The political story; The Geo-Political climate of the Star Wars universe is more convoluted than the Middle East in our real world. BAH!
The way the Jedi went out: Come on…they go out like CHUMPS! Weak.
The Wookies; WOOKIE PLEASE! Holy cameo appearances…why were they even there?
The Dialogue; “Hold me Anakin, hold me like you did by the lake in Naboo.” You can actually see the ham impressions left behind by Lucas' ham fisted attempts to write dialogue.
Overall I liked the movie, I didn't like the dialogue, thought that it tried to be too cute with tying everything in together, and most of the performances of the real live people were just pathetic…ironically it's the CG characters who seem more alive than their flesh and blood counterparts. Yoda has more little character building scenes (like rubbing his head as talking to Obi-Wan and Mace) than any of the real actors have. Most importantly, the sword fighting was awesome.
Yeah, it was a bad movie, but a damn good Star Wars episode.