STAR WARS: EPISODE III - REVENGE OF THE SITH REVIEW

At last! I finally made it to the theater to see Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith. Better late than never, right? So...how can I describe George Lucas's latest opus? Let's put it this way... If Episodes 1 and 2 were train wrecks, then Episode 3 is merely a six car pileup. That is to say, it's nowhere near as bad... If you've seen the movie, read on for my review/story analysis. If you haven't seen it, read no further! My review is one spoiler after another...

"The poster is cool...is the movie? Read on..."

Eh...where to start? The movie begins with Obi Wan and Anakin flying starfighters through some really visually stunning space battle scenes. The sound and the visuals in the first ten minutes or so are mind numbing. I was pleasantly surprised right off the bat. That pleasant surprise quickly faded, however, when Obi Wan's fighter was attacked by small spider-like attack drones and he just sits there doing nothing while they rip his fighter apart. Oh, I don't know...FORCE PUSH, anyone? I guess he forgot he could do that. Maybe he didn't have his morning cup of coffee yet? Eh...

So anyway, Anakin and Obi Wan invade the flagship, kick the shit out of a bunch of "Roger, Roger" droids and move on to confront Count Dooku (the stupidest villain's name in history, by the way...). Their mission is to rescue Chancellor Palpatine, who has been kidnapped by Dooku and the droid army. The showdown/lightsaber battle with Dooku is really quite cool, even though Obi Wan basically gets his ass handed to him AGAIN by the 83 year old Christopher Lee...erm...Dooku. The end of the conflict is your first indication as to why this movie gets a PG-13 rating. Tres coolio. Golf clap, even.

"I loved you as Dracula and as Scaramanga!"

Now...Palpatine's other "kidnapper" is a really, REALLY lame robot/android thing named Grievous... I shit you not, that's his name. Personally, I think it's a "grievous" error on Lucas's part to name a character this, but that's beside the point. On second thought, maybe Dooku isn't the worst villain's name... Okay, I digress. Anyway, what makes Grievous lame (besides the name) is the fact that he's about 95% robot...yet he apparently is fleshy enough to have a bad back, an incurable limp and the breathing capacity of a four pack a day smoker. An android with emphysyma...wtf? *shudder* Don't worry, though. All of these shortcomings pose no serious problem...he escapes capture and flees to the outer rim... Yeah.

"Time to call my travel agent... I hear Utapau is nice this time of year."

To summarize, asses are kicked, names are taken... Palpatine returns to the senate and asks Anakin to be his personal representative on the Jedi council. Cool, right? Well...kind of. The Jedi council, in what amounts to one of the great "dick moves" of all time, grants Anakin a seat on the council, but denies him the rank of Master. You know...for all the jerking around the council gives Anakin in this film (and up to this point), it's no wonder the kid ends up turning evil.

"Master? Nope. But a pizza sounds good, Annie. Get on that."

So...while this is going on, the "love story" develops further between Anakin and Padme. She is pregnant and she tells Anakin the wonderful news. It's so wonderful in fact, that if the Queen finds out, Padme will lose her Senator's status and the Jedi council will completely flip out on Anakin (even moreso than they already have). Thus, they keep it a secret. (As an aside, I'd say this movie takes place over the course of less than a month's time at most...and yet Padme, who isn't even "showing" at the beginning of the movie, is full on "preggers" by the end of it. Eh...maybe the women of Naboo only have two month pregnancies? Erm...yeah...that's it.) Mr. Lucas fumbles through some of the worst "lovey dovey" dialogue in movie history here, too. I'd cite some, but I've managed to somehow block it all out. Ick...

"You're so hot. *sigh* No, YOU'RE so hot. *sigh* NO...YOU'RE SOOOOO HOT! *sigh*"

At this point, Anakin starts having visions of Padme dying in childbirth. He naturally shit freaks about it (as any expectant father who can see the future would) and seeks Yoda's counsel. Yoda tells him how beautiful death is and how it's not to be feared. Did I mention the Jedi council comes off as dicks in this film? In yet ANOTHER dick move, they ask Anakin "off the record" to spy on his good friend Palpatine because they don't trust him. Mind you, this is AFTER they tell him he can't achieve Master rank. Is this poor guy under some MAJOR stress at this point or what?

"I wonder if the Jedi Council has a FAMILY insurance health plan, too?"

Around this time, the Jedi Council figures out where Grievous (remember him?) is hiding. Anakin wants to go finish him off and end the war. The Chancellor wants Anakin to go finish him off and end the war. So the Jedi council (*cough* dick move *cough*) decides to send Obi Wan instead. So now Obi Wan is off to the outer rim and Yoda is actually on Chewbacca's homeworld helping out the Wookies (including Chewbacca!) in their fight against the robot army. In short, most of the Jedi are scattered pretty much all over hell and creation.

Now that the bulk of the Jedi are out galavanting and trying to end the "arranged war," Chancellor Palpatine decides to use Anakin's fear of his wife's death against him to help complete his turn to the Dark Side. He tells the story of Darth Plagus (I swear, I'm not making these names up!) and his ability to manipulate *gasp* *choke* Metachlorians *puke* into life itself...to cheat death. Oh...and apparently the Emperor is such a bad ass that the way he took down Darth Plagus was...wait for it...wait for it...to KILL HIM IN HIS SLEEP! Wow... Menacing.

"So then...after giving him Ny Quil...I went into his room with a big, fluffy pillow and..."

Anakin (who is apparently smarter than every Jedi on the council) FINALLY puts two and two together and says "Holy shit! You're the Sith Lord all of us morons have been looking for for the past two and a half films!" (Well...he doesn't LITERALLY say that, but you get the idea... It's a cool scene, actually.) He has to decide whether or not he should put Palpatine in a pine box (or whatever passes for one A Long Time Ago...) or if he should hear him out and learn about the dark side of the Force to save his love's life.

Score one for the kid! He does the "Jedi Thing" and goes back to the Jedi temple to tell Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson) that Palpatine is the Sith Lord they've been looking for. Windu decides to round up his posse and go put the man who would be Emperor in the hurt locker once and for all. Anakin offers his mad lightsaber skills to help, but Windu (In like...what? Their seventeenth dick move?) says that he doesn't trust Anakin. But, being the good sport he is, he tells Anakin that if Palpatine really IS a Sith Lord (like he'd be making this shit up), THEN he will start trusting him. Eh... Okay.

"Does Yoda...look...like a BITCH to you?"

Windu and four or five other Jedi "extras" go to the Chancellor's chambers to arrest him. Brilliant tacticians that they are, they don't enter the chamber and spread out...they stand in a little ten by ten entryway, which is oh so conducive to wielding a lightsaber. So, the 61 year old Ian McDiarmid pulls a "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Emperor" and runs through all of the extras in no time with his bad ass red lightsaber. He then turns his attention to Mace Windu, in what amounts to what is probably the coolest confrontation in the film. WARNING: The next five minutes of film contain the WORST ACTING EVER IN A STAR WARS FILM by the aforementioned, crusty Ian McDiarmid.

"Who wants some? Who's next? You want a little? HUH? DO YA?"

Anakin is bored with sitting around at the Jedi temple, so he decides to go help Windu put the hurt on the Emperor. Meanwhile, apparently Mace is twice the ass kicker that Yoda is because he basically puts the big hurt on Palpatine, disarming him and pinning him on his back against a wall with his shiny purple blade at his throat. Anakin arrives and both Mace and the Emperor make their cases for why he should help them. The Emperor throws lightning at Windu, who reflects it back with his lightsaber and messes up the Emperor's face in a major way. Windu decides to abandon the Jedi code (dick move) and just kill the Emperor in cold blood, rather than put him on trial in front of the council. Palpatine pleads to Anakin for help in the name of saving Padme's life, so Anakin decides to slice and dice Windu, who is then lightning bolted out of a 50 story window and into the city below.

So NOW...Anakin, who has been nothing but good and loyal and faithful to the Jedi to this point transforms INSTANTLY into the Dark Lord Darth Vader. I'm serious... He like kneels before the Emperor without so much as a pained look and then rises as Vader. Then, the Emperor casually tells him that all Jedi are now enemies of the republic, so Vader should go out and take care of the dirty work. So Anakin says...um..."okay"...or something to that effect and sets out in ass kicking mode.

"Kill all the Jedi? Sure...I can do that. Anything else?"

Obi Wan, meanwhile, has landed on the appropriate outworld (with a lame name that escapes me) and is riding around on a dragon creature (whose call he imitated in the original Star Wars) on the lookout for Lord Grievous. He finds Grievous and a bunch of the separatists and jumps right into the group of them. He then proceeds to duke it out with our breathing-challenged android friend who suddenly sprouts four arms, each wielding a lightsaber! This would be really cool if it weren't such a blatant attempt to develop the action figure line... *sigh*

"Look, Kids! I've got Kung Fu Lightsaber grip, too!"

Obi Wan is apparently the master of defeating Jedi who wield more than one lightsaber (ala Grievous and Darth Maul) and is only useless against guys who wield one saber at a time. He slices and dices Grievous and then chases him out the window and around the planetscape on the back of his dragon thingie mount. He catches up with Grievous and finishes him off (by blasting his heart, of all things) without the assistance of his lightsaber (which he carelessly drops along the way).

Back on Coruscant, Anakin has sliced and diced his way into the Jedi temple. Once inside, he runs into the gaggle of little Jedi children that Yoda was training in Episode 2. One of the cute little guys asks "Master Anakin" what they should do, to which Anakin's reply is...igniting his lightsaber. Wow. I didn't think George had the balls. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly why the film is rated PG-13. It's almost enough to give you a chill. But AGAIN...Anakin was good to a fault up until...oh...about 10 minutes before this, yet he graduates to slaughtering "younglings" almost instantly. Hmmmm... That's pretty evil, folks. But also a stretch...

So now it's on! The Jedi are getting whipped big time! The Emperor calls all of his field generals on his little hologram cellular phone doohickie and tells them to execute "Plan 66." (I wonder what the other 65 are?) Anyway, apparently Plan 66 is what Maxim Magazine would refer to as "Killing Jedi like bitches." Yep...the stormtroopers on every world gun down their Jedi supporters and wipe out the Jedi council (with very little trouble) in one fell swoop! Well...other than Obi Wan and Yoda, of course, who are way too cool to fall for something as lamely named as "Plan 66."

"Hi...you don't know me, but I die horribly while putting up little resistance."

So...with the Jedi gone, Palpatine declares himself Emperor in front of the senate, who apparently think that's just a bitchin' idea. Everyone's on board with it! That was easy enough... Meanwhile, Yoda and Obi Wan rendezvous with Senator Organa (Jimmy Smits) on the Blockade Runner (from the original Star Wars). They decide to go to the Jedi Temple to turn off the "Jedis Come Home" homing beacon that's broadcasting from the big radio tower there. And so they do...whipping a lot of stormtrooper ass along the way. They shut off the beacon and Obi Wan watches the...um...security tapes (apparently the Jedi temple gets robbed more often than a 7 Eleven) and witnesses Anakin putting the little Jedi trainess through the Veg-O-Matic. Appalling!

"Let's go turn off the "Jedis Come Home" beacon, eh?"

Holy shit this is a long "review!" But hey...it's a long movie...

Okay, so Yoda and Obi Wan split up. Yoda decides to go take on the Emperor while Obi Wan is sent to kill his Padawan and best friend of the past 20 years. Vicious force power and lightsaber battles ensue...all hell breaks loose...dogs and cats...living together...MASS HYSTERIA! Yoda and the Emperor fight to a draw, after which Yoda simply concedes and says, "Welp...I guess I'd better go into exile now." Um...what? Yeah...I don't get it either.

"The Emperor? Bah... I've got swamp land to tend and rootleaf to put in the crock pot!!!"

Back on Lava World (TM), Obi Wan has stowed away on Padme's ship and that's how he learns where Anakin is. When they arrive, Anakin has just finished hacking and slashing his way through all of the annoying characters introduced in the first two movies (other than Jar Jar) like the Viceroy and those weirdos. I seriously thought about standing and applauding at that point... Padme confronts Anakin about his turn to the dark side, to which he decides to put on his "wife beater" cloak and put the old "Force choke" on his uppity bride. Obi Wan doesn't take too kindly to that, so he tells Anakin to let her go. So...he does.

"Anakin, this is gonna hurt you a lot more than it hurts me..."

Obi Wan and Anakin start the climactic battle of the film. Obi Wan must have had some Red Bull or something beforehand, because Anakin should basically hand him his ass. But...Obi Wan fights just as well, and in some cases better, than his old Padawan. They fight back and forth and end up fighting on a hover platform that's moving along a river of lava. (My theory? The only reason this happens is so they can have lame jumping puzzles in the Episode 3 Video Game.) Eh...push comes to shove. Obi Wan ends up on shore. He tells Anakin not to attack because it's a losing effort. Anakin attacks anyway and Obi Wan cuts off BOTH of his legs and his OTHER arm with one saber stroke.

So here stands Obi Wan, watching his best friend for the past 20 years sink into a pool of lava with only one working (mechanical) arm. In what amounts to the ULTIMATE JEDI DICK MOVE, he just stands there and watches...even after Anakin starts on FIRE! Once Anakin is basically barbecue, Obi Wan simply turns, leaves and returns to the ship where Padme has been put aboard by C-3PO. They leave the planet to rendezvous, once again, with Senator Organa and the Blockade Runner.

"Oh, I say...I'm...quite badly burned."

The Emperor...the guy who didn't give two shits about losing Darth Maul or Darth Tyrannus...the guy who killed his own master in his SLEEP...races across the galaxy to save Anakin from the lava pit, which has essentially, at this point, turned him into a bratwurst left on the grill all day during a Brewer game tailgater party. Um...sure.

Finally, after plodding along for two hours showing this and that, Lucas wraps up his trilogy in the last ten minutes by showing the birth of Luke and Leia (who are full grown, mature babies when they emerge from the womb), the death and funeral march of Padme (who shouldn't be dead, since Leia remembers her in Jedi) and the surgical conversion of "Anakin Chunks" into the wrecking ball you and I know as THE Darth Vader (voiced by James Earl Jones). When Vader rises for the first time in his new suit, we get to witness the horror of the worst sequence in the film. The Emperor tells Anakin that Vader killed Padme in his anger, to which Vader stumbles forward, throws his arms back, and delivers the lamest "Noooooooo" scream in cinematic history. My eyes! Burning! Make it stop!

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Ultimately, Vader and the Emperor are seen on the bridge of a Star Destroyer alongside a guy who looks remarkably like Peter Cushing (Grand Moff Tarkin from Star Wars) looking out the view screen at a surprisingly intact Death Star. I guess they run into financing problems or trouble with a Union strike since apparently it takes them 20 years to build the rest of it once the framework is in place. Erm...C-3PO gets a mind wipe for his troubles. Leia, meanwhile, leaves with Organa and his wife and Luke is delivered by Obi Wan to Owen and Beru on Tatooine...who watch the planet's twin suns rise in the final shot of the film.

Whew! How's THAT for a review and a plot synopsis?

Positives:

• Ewan MacGregor as Obi Wan is FANTASTIC in this movie.
• Hayden Christensen is actually convincing as an evil badass now.
• No Jar Jar (no SPEAKING Jar Jar anyway)
• Lightsaber battles galore.
• Dark, evil and twisted atmosphere throughout.
• Severed limbs and body parts everywhere!
• BETTER THAN THE FIRST TWO EPISODES COMBINED!!!!!

Negatives:

• Eh...everything I listed in the text of the review above.