Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
So I finally got round to seeing this.
After reading the book of the film I was expecting this to be a bloated beast but was pleasantly surprised when I realized that nearly all the exposition and subplots were cut out. Comparing it to the book they’ve even edited down a bunch of the big set pieces. Which has had the effect of making the film move really quickly.
Yes the dialogue is atrocious. Yes all subtlety is lost. Yes the acting is mince (well mostly). Yes this film is a lot of fun to watch.
It’s no masterpiece. It’s probably the third or fourth best Star Wars film (with a big gap between the top two and the rest). I’ll be quite happy to buy it on DVD, whereas I only got Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones for completeness’ sake.
The main thing about this film is that when it does things right you can see how the prequel trilogy could have worked really well and when it does things badly you can see why it failed.
It’s an action packed adventure film with great battle sequences, lightsaber fights and some nice touches linking it with the original trilogy. If you can suffer the non-action scenes without Ian McDiarmid in them then you’ll enjoy the film. Just don’t expect anything meaningful out of it.
My verdict? Unless you’re a pretty rabid Star Wars fan, you’d be better off waiting for the DVD.