Revenge of the Sith

Saw Star Wars 3 last night. I loved it, but I certainly didn't love every minute of it.

Episode III has everything that made the original trilogy great. The storytelling and political/religious themes are tremendously improved from the last two installments. It also has everything that made those last two suck. The dialog is almost uniformly horrendous, and although the CGI is impressive, there's a lot more of it than there needs to be. About one out of every five effects, you're kind of thinking, "Cool! But unnecessary."

Reports to the contrary notwithstanding, Hayden Christensen has made no great strides in approaching actual acting. Bad dialog will make anybody look bad (except, apparently, Ewan McGregor), but Hayden just is bad. Very Keanu-esque; I was almost looking around for the cue cards. His scenes with Natalie Portman reach particularly stunning levels of deadness, but I refuse to concede that she lacks talent. She has done some very nice work from The Professional to Garden State. But Lucas' love scenes are less believable than those of Shark Tale.

But Ewan. Ah, The Ewan. Mr. McGregor is fast approaching the top of my list of the most dedicated, creative and skilled actors working in Hollywood today. Only Johnny Depp and Billy Bob Thornton come to mind as actors who pour themselves into a role as completely. He not only has Alec Guinness' accent and self-possession down cold, he has evolved before our eyes into the Obi-Wan Kenobi we only heard about in the stories of the first trilogy. From his intense fighting style to his humble wisdom to his delicious delivery of quips like "So uncivilized" after vanquishing a foe with a blaster rather than the honorable saber.

And there was a lot of other stuff I liked. Like I said, the storytelling is masterful and many of the effects are of unsurpassed brilliance. Great symbolism and political commentary in the scene where Emperor Bush...err, Palpatine, destructively hurls the actual seats of democractic representatives at Yoda. Even Anakin's transformation was as believable and subtle as one could reasonably expect. But then there were things like this guy General Grievous. Yes, that's his name. Despite being entirely mechanical, with a beating and surprisingly unprotected heart as his only organic component, he still has asthma? But he wields four lightsabers at once, which is cool but somehow still not as cool as Darth Maul's double-sabered bo.

So like everybody else in the world is saying, much better than the other recent Star Wars schlock, but not quite approaching the quality of the original trilogy. What, you were expecting perfection?