Unless you've spent the last couple of years in the pit of the Sarlacc, perhaps trying to fix a jetpack or something, it's been almost impossible to avoid the hype surrounding the latest (and perhaps final) Star Wars picture - referred to until relatively recently as merely 'Episode III', before acquiring the title 'Revenge of the Sith'. A couple of years back, bets were placed that it would be 'Rise of the Empire'. Personally I'd rather go with Topfive.com's suggestion - 'Episode III: who cares *what* we call it, you idiots are going to see it anyway'.
The new Star Wars trilogy has, to a certain extent, been a victim of its own success. So slick was the marketing campaign - not since The Blair Witch Project has a film been so vehemently and cleverly publicised - that disappointment was perhaps inevitable. Somewhere along the line, it became impossible for the final part to live up to the hype, however hard it tried (and it does try exceedingly hard). With this in mind, then, perhaps the best course of action is to discard all the idiocy about how big and important this is - of how it's the closing chapter in an enormous and vast legacy, a tragically Wagnerian opera come full circle. It's difficult to do this, particularly in our media saturated society - you can hardly breathe without some idiot reminding you that Palpatine's malevolent seizure of absolute power ("I *am* the senate!") is actually a not-so-subtle dig at Bush, or that the film cleverly foreshadows the inevitable degradation of technology in a manner that's reminiscent of pre-Nazi Germany, or - well, you get the idea. But if you can clear your mind of clutter, and just concentrate on the film as pure Saturday night hokum, then maybe….just maybe….
Revenge of the Sith opens with the word "War!" - the by-the-numbers textual scroll setting the stage for things to come - and then barely lets up for a minute. Opening with a pitched space battle, the like of which has been sorely missing over the last two films (unless you count Jake Lloyd's dull-as-ditchwater destruction of the battledroid ship in The Phantom Menace, and personally I don't), we move from the big black across the galaxy, in a display of dazzling set pieces, each evidently designed to outdo the last. Quiet moments are of course present and correct (well, present) but they take a firm back seat and serve merely as a brief respite before the next battle. It would be easy to say that this almost constant onslaught of intensity leaves you bored, but to be honest that's actually not the case - indeed, the film is generally at its most entertaining when lightsabers or blasters are involved.
Those quiet moments, then. When the drums die away and the strings fade up, you're supposed to stop thinking about death and violence, and concentrate on the characters. If Episode I had the insufferable Jar Jar Binks (surely the most compelling argument for genocide in years) and Episode II had Natalie Portman rolling around in a cornfield like Julie Andrews' sluttish granddaughter, the third goes one better, and swamps the poor audience with the most excruciating dialogue since - well, since Attack of the Clones, actually. The dialogue is supposed to move the story on, but to be honest it only leaves it lingering in a swamp of eternal despair: several times I tried to chew my own fingers off out of sheer misery. As Harrison Ford would have said, "You can type this s**t, but you can't say it".
Herein lies the main problem of Revenge of the Sith: stylistically it's a film of two halves, and one half simply isn't very good. With the help of some clever second-unit directors and an awful lot of CGI (generally good but let down by a few genuinely shocking moments) Lucas can just about pull off the action segments with his reputation intact. Give him a love scene, however, and he goes completely to pieces. It's partly his complete lack of subtlety when it comes to cinematography - never knowing when to go for a close-up and when to pan out - but mostly it's the dialogue, which stinks. The film plays with you like a yoyo: one minute you're thrilled at the spectacle of the light show you've witnessed, and as you realise that the whole future of the galaxy is at stake you actually find yourself beginning to care about what's going on - which is more difficult than you might think, particularly when you more or less know how it's all going to end. And then, just as emotional involvement seems inevitable, Padme appears on a balcony and says "Hold me…like you did on Naboo". At this point I cursed that I'd thrown that popcorn bucket away. To be fair, it isn't much worse than the dross we had to put up with in the original trilogy, but at least that was slightly tongue-in-cheek - how on earth are you supposed to swallow stuff like this?
To their credit, the cast (for the most part) do their very best with what they're given. Obi-Wan's transition from young, slightly foppish graduate student to wise and experienced sensei is at last complete in the more-than-capable hands of Macgregor, who finally looks like he's enjoying himself a bit. Portman is competent enough - although she has little to do except stand on a terrace and gaze anxiously off into the night sky, while modelling assorted Leia-esque hairstyles just so you're reminded of her legacy as often as possible. At least she has fewer costumes than Attack of the Clones - when she confronts Anakin with the words "You've changed!" I couldn't help thinking "Well, at least you haven't for a while".
Anakin himself takes centre stage - his Faustian downfall is left in once more in the hands of Hayden Christensen, who is (whisper it) Not Too Bad At All. After acting like a sullen teenager in Attack of the Clones, Christensen is finally let off his mentor's leash and manages to project a character who is at least two-dimensional - a big improvement on the James Dean wannabe of Episode II whose lip trembled and who described things as "soft…and smooth". He's never going to be Robert De Niro, but thankfully the role doesn't demand that, and while he still messes up chronically in the scenes where he's trying to be nice, his portrayal of evil Anakin - while shallow - is almost convincing….and from an actor who was probably the worst thing in the second film, that's a big jump.
Villains and additional characters are variable - Ian McDarmid once more drips evil as Palpatine, finally displaying his true colours with an evil cackle that wouldn't be out of place in Macbeth - while Christopher Lee is drastically underused (although you think he'd be used to it after the Lord of the Rings fiasco). Mace Windu is worthy but also interminably dull, much like new antagonist General Grievous, who manages to be perhaps the most boring Star Wars villain in history - a hacking cough being the only thing about him that is even remotely interesting. Yoda once more waxes lyrical about all sorts of evil stirring in the crumbling Republic, but this time he outstays his welcome - the Japanese backwards-speak grates all too quickly, and half the time you find yourself wishing the hairy little thing would shut up. At least he's still handy with his miniature lightsaber - proving once and for all that it's not the size of your saber that counts, but what you do with it.
The story rattles on, full of structural flaws and moments that make you go "Whaaa…?!?" - no sooner have you settled back into the swing of things than it's time for another putrid romantic exchange, continuity error or shameless name-drop. In the post-Matrix era it's difficult to watch without cynicism, and non-action scenes are seldom actually good - they're generally either badly acted, badly scripted, or both. That leaves the fast and furious (not to mention overlong) lightsaber battles, which are almost enough, but not quite. Nonetheless, it's hard not to actually like this movie, and there is a strangely rewarding sense of finality about things: towards the end you finally become aware that you're watching the closing chapter of a set, and amidst the glowing sunsets and brooding looks there are some genuinely clever moments.
This is the best of the last three - to be honest that's not saying much, and it isn't really a fair comparison. It was as good as we'd hoped for and better than we feared, and that has to be a good thing. But when all is said and done, I'd imagine that watching Revenge of the Sith would be rather like visiting a street brothel. It's an empty, vacuous and only partially fulfilling experience, but there's so much build up that you find yourself desperate to enjoy yourself enough to get your money's worth. And you try your hardest, and some parts are fun, but on your way home what sticks in your mind is an uneasy combination of stilted, superficial dialogue, passionless gloss - and, towards the end, lots of heavy breathing.
(Wedmesday, 25th May 2005)
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