THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SORT OF SPOILER-Y DETAILS. I MEAN, EVERYONE KNEW THESE DETAILS BEFORE THE FILM EVEN CAME OUT BECAUSE OF THE ORIGINALS, BUT IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THOSE EITHER AND ARE VERY GOOD AT AVOIDING STUFF ON THE INTERNET THEN YOU MIGHT STILL NOT KNOW THOSE DETAILS. I DON'T REALLY KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT ANYMORE, BUT THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS. THERE YOU GO.
After two underwhelming Star Wars outings, audiences were really hoping that Revenge of the Sith was going to be the film that fixed everything. After all, it was the big one, the whole reason the prequel trilogy existed; it was time for Anakin to turn to the dark side. Unfortunately, Revenge of the Sith didn't exactly fix everything that was wrong with the prequels, but it was still a bit of an improvement. Not that that's saying much.
The Bad Bits
Revenge of the Sith, despite doing a lot of things right and making a lot of things better, still suffers from a lot of issues that plagued the previous two films.
Most importantly, Anakin and Padmé's relationship is still made up of awful dialogue ("You are so... beautiful." "It's only because I'm so in love.") and painfully forced acting. This is even more of a problem than before, unfortunately, as in Attack of the Clones, their relationship was merely irritating, but in Revenge of the Sith, it's an important factor in Anakin's fall to the dark side. The audience is supposed to really care about this relationship, so that when Anakin does become a Sith, the effect of this is more profound. Except, the audience couldn't care less about their relationship - because it's so poorly written and performed - and the effect is completely lost.
The lack of emotional effect is a consistent problem in Revenge of the Sith. It was a problem in the previous two films as well, but when you've got an event as emotional as a main character turning into an evil Sith Lord, the issue becomes a lot more apparent. Nowhere is it more apparent than in the lightsabre duels, especially the one between Obi-Wan and Anakin. What we needed was an incredibly emotionally fuelled duel between two emotional wrecks. Instead we got an incredibly CGI fuelled duel between two lifeless stuntmen. Instead of making the duel big on emotion, George Lucas made it big on spectacle and as a result the fight doesn't leave any lasting impact, at least not until the end. When all the flashing and flipping is over, Obi-Wan stands staring down at Anakin, who's a complete limbless and emotional wreck, and Ewan McGregor delivers easily the most emotional performance in the entire prequel trilogy when he shouts, "You were my brother, Anakin." Compared to a lot of the lines in this film, this one is impressively implicit. Combined with the rather gruesome image of Anakin and Ewan McGregor's performance, you get the emotional feeling you really should have felt throughout the entire fight, not just at the end.
As I've made quite blatantly clear, Revenge of the Sith's script has an ongoing struggle to convey emotions. Lucas seemed to feel the best way, outside of the previously mentioned line from Obi-Wan, was for the characters to just say it ("Anakin, you're breaking my heart!"), yet this always comes off as incredibly forced. If this were a radio play, or the internal monologue of a character in a book, this would be more acceptable, but when you're creating a film, you've got the extra advantage of being able to see the characters and when you can see the characters, you can see how they are feeling, without them having to explicitly tell you. The previous two films didn't usually take advantage of that and, a lot of the time, neither does Revenge of the Sith. Even if they are going to express emotion through dialogue, you need to do it more subtly, through the words and the way the actor delivers them, not by spoon feeding the character's feelings to the audience.
Revenge of the Sith centres around a highly emotional and tragic turning point in the Star Wars saga, but too much of the time that emotion is dealt with clumsily, just like in the previous two, yet unlike those films, the emotion needed to be dealt with far more carefully and therefore ends up wounding the overall film even more when it isn't.
The Better Bits
Like I said, in many departments, Revenge of the Sith is an improvement on The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. That doesn't mean these departments are good, not by any means, but they're certainly better.
There are some issues with the dialogue, which I've just gone over, but it is a lot better. For a decent amount of time, you feel like these characters might actually be interacting with each other, and not just being forced to read out of a manual for a Naboo Starfighter, or a textbook about Tatooine. In the opening sequence (which is easily the best part of the entire film) you could even describe Anakin and Obi-Wan as having moderate banter. In fact, Hayden Christensen seems to almost act. Not completely, but almost. There's also a lot less love stuff between Anakin and Padmé, which helps a lot, even if it is just as awful when it does happen, but as long as the characters aren't trying to blatantly convey emotions, the dialogue feels a lot less robotic and a lot less cheesy than before. It's still not good, but it is better.
The special effects look much nicer as well. This is probably down to the passage of time and potentially an increase in budget, but everything is much more pleasing to the eye than before. It still seems more dated than even A New Hope does, as the CGI is, like before, extremely overused, even in pointless places like spaceship interiors and halls, but it is at least better looking CGI than before. This also helps the action sequences to feel a lot more tangible than they did in the previous two. Again, not as tangible as the originals, but still not as fake as Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones.
The plot is also a decent improvement over the previous two as well. For one, it has a much clearer focus than Phantom Menace did, that being Anakin's turn to the dark side. With Phantom Menace, it was never quite clear what the plot was actually trying to fulfil, and instead left you kind of confused as to the motives behind any of the characters, provided you could even figure out which character you were supposed to follow anyway. It's also a lot less all over the place than Attack of the Clones. Thanks to the clearer focus, Revenge of the Sith seems to have much more purpose. It doesn't feel like we're just going from one place to the next for no reason, instead, everything is happening so that the Republic loses the war and the Jedi Order loses Anakin. At times, because the previous films didn't get much done, it can feel like certain things are rushed. Count Dooku's disposal comes out of pretty much nowhere, but his death did have to happen, and thanks to the shortcomings of Revenge of the Sith's predecessors, there wasn't really a better way of doing it.
Again, none of these improvements have made anything particularly good, they've just made them a lot less bad.
The Good Bits
Revenge of the Sith, as previously mentioned, is a tragic film and where it doesn't quite get that right in terms of characters, it certainly gets that right in terms of tone.
I've consistently praised the creative design of these films and Revenge of the Sith is just as good, if not better. The design serves the intended tone of the film brilliantly, everything looks intense and dramatic and always feels like something is going to go horribly wrong at any moment. Mustafar, where the final duel between Obi-Wan and Anakin takes place, is a perfect example of this. The huge, dark volcanoes and the violent lava pools reinforce the idea that this is an extremely important final battle, even if it is rather emotionally lacking.
The music that plays during this scene and many others is tonally fantastic as well. It's composed by John Williams, so it's obviously going to be near perfect on its own, but it's even better in context. During this duel, the music is epic and loud and relentless, reflecting the overall feel of the fight itself perfectly. The Order 66 sequence is where we really get to see the music shine. The characters don't blurt out unnecessary and poorly written lines of dialogue, instead we see the harrowing scenes of Jedis being brutally cut down with nothing but John William's beautiful score in the background. It's moments like this when Revenge of the Sith is at its emotionally strongest, when it just shuts up and lets the music and the images you're seeing on the screen do the talking.
It may seem a bit insignificant to praise Ian McDiarmid, after all, he is just one actor, but he really adds to Revenge of the Sith in a very significant way. As Palpatine, he absolutely dominates his scenes with Anakin, not just because Hayden Christensen is like a piece of wood wearing a dressing gown, but because McDiarmid is such a good villain. His performance is remarkably subtle compared to the likes of Count Dooku and General Grievous. He's not blatantly villainous, but is much more sly and sinister. He shines the most in the fantastic opera scene, in which he tells Anakin the Sith legend of Darth Plagueis the Wise, a fittingly eerie tale that's matched perfectly by the strange scenery and Ian McDiarmid's restrained, but creepy performance.
In other words, there's a lot to like.
The Verdict
Revenge of the Sith still maintains a lot of issues that the rest of the prequels had. The acting is often wooden, the dialogue is often clunky and the action, whilst spectacular, is severely emotionally disconnected. What rescues it is its far better and more focused plot, a consistently dark tone and a fantastic score by John Williams, that has the chance to shine far more than it did in The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones. Even the dialogue and the acting is improved, which is most apparent in Ian McDiarmid's fantastic performance as Palpatine. It isn't enough to say that Revenge of the Sith is a great film, but I think it is just enough to say that it's almost a good one.
5.9/10
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