Movie Review by Nigel A. Messenger
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Ian McDiarmid
Director: George Lucas
At last the film that STAR WARS fans have been waiting years for has arrived. Whist THE PHANTOM MENACE and ATTACK OF THE CLONES told the story from its beginnings, REVENGE OF THE SITH heralds the formation of The Empire and more importantly Anakin Skywalker’s (Hayden Christensen) conversion to the Dark Side and becoming Darth Vader.
As I don’t want to give too much of the story away for those who have not yet seen the movie, I’ll keep my summary short. While the Chancellor manipulates the senate into giving him more power Obi-Wan Kenobi discovers that someone, apparently a Jedi Knight thought to have been killed, has ordered the creation of a clone army. Soon we see Anakin secretly marry Senator Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman), we discover who the Emperor is, we see the start of the war, the betrayal of the Jedi Knights, Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa born and the creation of Darth Vader plus of course a lot more in between.
While THE PHANTOM MENACE and ATTACK OF THE CLONES were fairly lightweight stories, REVENGE OF THE SITH is extremely dark. There’s also plenty of action and as Anakin slowly turns to the Dark Side he commits one atrocity after another. It seems the best way to defeat an opponent in a lightsaber battle is to chop their arms off! But if you’re concerned about kids seeing this, don’t be. They will be so immersed in the story they will probably ignore it and in any case this isn’t KILL BILL – there is no blood spurting anywhere! The only possible problem might be a scene towards the end of the film when we see why Darth Vader needs to wear that helmet all the time.
Also fortunately in this movie McGregor seems to have become more comfortable with Obi-Wan as he acts a little less like he’s reading his lines for the first time and puts some emotion into his role rather than simply trying to impersonate Alec Guinness, which seemed a real problem for him in EPISODE II.
So what’s my verdict? Well as you’ve probably guessed I was somewhat let down with the last two releases but REVENGE OF THE SITH… I loved it. I could see the film again right now and probably again after that. Although my favourite STAR WARS is still THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, this one is right up there with it.
I’m now looking forward to both the animated and especially the live action TV series that George Lucas has talked about, but I still hope along with millions of other STAR WARS fans, that one day someone, although I doubt it will be Lucas, will make STAR WARS 7,8 and 9 because ultimately I’m sure that is really what fans want to see. In the meantime we will all watch REVENGE OF THE SITH many times over.
