On for a bit of bovver: Obi-Wan and Anikin prepare to, mistakenly, save Chancellor Palpatine.

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Hayden Christiansen, Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor, Ian McDiarmid

Revenge isn’t sweet

Rating:

Anikin Skywalker is from a dysfunctional family. His mother was a slave, his father unknown.

He’s been chosen to train as a Jedi because the widgets in his blood are particularly strong. He’s the chosen one. Taken from his mother, his planet and the life he knew, he’s been bought by the Jedi and to cap it all he has to live with being called Annie.

In short Anikin Skywalker has turned into a petulant, spoiled youth who looks as though he’d be happier in Home and Away rather than Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Hayden Christiansen (Anikin), according to my wife, is eye candy, but has little to offer as far as character development is concerned. He seems to have almost no connection with his beloved Padme (Portman), with Obi-Wan (McGregor) his Jedi master or Chancellor Palpatine (McDiarmid) who’s trying to turn him, with little difficulty, into the epitome of naughtiness.

The movie hinges on the fact that Annie has dreams, usually of impending death, which come true. He can’t handle his prescience, particularly where Padme is concerned, but instead of turning to his Jedi masters for help he turns elsewhere and find himself on the long slippery slope to becomming Darth Vader.

Don’t get me wrong; Revenge is a galaxy-spanning romp with some of the most spectacular battle and individual fight scenes I’ve seen in the cinema. The movie is beautifully crafted and the special effects dazzling but, I think, not enough to carry my attention for two hours and twenty minutes. I made allowances for actors having to work in front of green or blue screens so the sets could be dropped in electronically after, but even that doesn’t explain a lack of interaction between them.

I get the impression that character development has been sacrificed to special effects, that script content or lack of it has turned the movie into a series of loose vignettes – unsatisfactory when viewed as whole. It’s good to see George Lucas back at the helm; his hand is sure where the available material is concerned and I think Episode II suffered most at the hands of another director. Episode I was good but it was taking us down the prequel path.

Revenge does answer a lot of questions and neatly links the three prequels with the original Star Wars, which series Lucas wrote and directed 22 years ago. If you suffer from vertigo, look out for the opening scene. If you have sensitive ears, take your plugs.

At least this time we are spared the effort of keeping up with Padme’s changes of hairstyle. You do get more BANG for your buck.

– Hugh McKenzie

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