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STAR WARS: EPISODE THREE -- REVENGE OF THE SITH By Tom McCurrie
I'll be honest. Though I'm a big fan of the STAR WARS series, I thought THE PHANTOM MENACE and ATTACK OF THE CLONES were pretty lame. I mean, if STAR WARS and THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK were number one with a bullet, MENACE and CLONES, with their stilted dialogue, wooden acting and convoluted plotting, were number one-hundred with an anchor. So it was no surprise that I found myself awaiting REVENGE OF THE SITH with as much trepidation as I would a pitch meeting with Darth Vader. But to my relief, writer-director George Lucas has gotten enough of the Force back to make SITH the best STAR WARS flick since EMPIRE.
(Warning: Spoilers Ahead!)
Now this doesn't mean SITH is better than EMPIRE (or the first STAR WARS for that matter). SITH is saddled with the same problems as MENACE and CLONES. There's the obvious dialogue, as when Obi-Wan Kenobi turns to find Anakin behind him and says, "Oh, it's you." Sorry to rag on a fellow alumnus, George, but any Screenwriting 101 course will tell you to cut dialogue that states what is already visually apparent. And lines like Padme's "You're breaking my heart" are much too on-the-nose. Movies aren't real life (especially when they're sci-fi/fantasy), but the human behavior portrayed on-screen needs to be at least realistic enough to suspend our disbelief. People rarely say what's exactly on their minds; they tend to use subtext in their conversation, getting across their wants/needs indirectly. Even a heavy dose of the Force couldn't make a line like Padme's sound natural.
The wooden acting by Hayden Christensen (as Anakin) and Natalie Portman (as Padme) also makes a return engagement. These two neither have chemistry together nor charisma separately, even when playing "big" emotions like anger and grief. And Lucas fails to pull a quality turn from them. Now you could say that it's very difficult to give a performance when you're acting to a green screen, when there's nothing "real" for the actor to play off. But Ian McDiarmid's sly Chancellor Palpatine and Ewan McGregor's righteous Obi-Wan Kenobi compel attention green screen or not, showing that if an actor has the chops, he can be his own special effect.
The convoluted plotting continues as well, as the audience has to slough through a series of red herrings and double-crosses to figure out who is manipulating events behind the scenes, and for what purpose. SITH one-ups MENACE/CLONES in this department, however, since the true nature of the conspiracy is ultimately revealed, streamlining the plot and making it more comprehensible.
SITH improves on MENACE/CLONES in other ways, most specifically in the action sequences. From the opening set-piece where Anakin and Obi-Wan fight their way through a gigantic space battle to rescue Palpatine, the picture is wall to wall action. This not only generates loads of excitement and suspense, but gives SITH a pace that makes it seem much shorter than its 140-minute running time. And because there is much less "downtime" in the movie, there is much less opportunity for stilted dialogue and wooden acting. (There is also much less time for execrable characters like Jar Jar Binks, who is thankfully limited to a cameo here.)
The action is also bigger and better this time around. The opening battle is breathtaking in its immensity, seemingly involving every spaceship in the universe; Obi-Wan fights a bad guy that, in a nod to Ray Harryhausen, wields four lightsabers at once; and when Obi-Wan and Anakin have a duel to the death, they do it amidst lava flows the size of Niagara Falls. The sheer scale of these set-pieces is jaw-dropping, making it impossible not to be enthralled.
And if Lucas comes up short as a writer of dialogue and a director of actors, he outdoes himself as a visual stylist here. Not only are the action sequences eye-catching, but even when nothing is happening, the landscapes, whether they be the glittering capital of the Republic, the forest home of the Wookies or the forbidding desert of Tatooine, are presented in such a pictorially splendid fashion they're nearly suitable for framing.
Though the characterizations in MENACE/CLONES were on the shallow side, Lucas makes up for that in SITH by giving good-guy Anakin a delicious inner conflict -- either he succumbs to the Dark Side of the Force or he lets his true love Padme die. We're all complex, conflicted individuals, so putting a character like that at the center of SITH grounds the sci-fi/fantasy in a compelling emotional reality. (If only Christensen's acting were up to the task of selling this inner torment, SITH would be more compelling and emotional.)
SITH truly comes alive when Anakin embraces the Dark Side at the mid-point, betraying the Jedi and morphing into Darth Vader. Of course, since we already know the backstory of Anakin/Vader from previous STAR WARS films, this arc from good to evil is entirely predictable. And when something is predictable it lacks dramatic punch. But though we know ahead of time that Anakin becomes Vader, we don't know how or why, and discovering that how or why keeps SITH fresh enough to sustain interest. Besides, like a great Shakespearean tragedy, watching a good man give in to his basest impulses step by horrible step has a pull all its own.
Lucas has been accused of starting the mindless movie craze with the release of STAR WARS in 1977. Since then, critics argue, we've been subjected to overblown tentpole flicks that offer nothing more than explosions and special effects. Now critics may have a point with the first STAR WARS, a sheer entertainment if there ever was one, but SITH has far more thematic resonance than your typical tentpole. In fact, it has far more thematic resonance than most movies period. For as SITH reveals, Palpatine has staged a rebellion to scare the Republic into giving him dictatorial powers. In these fearful post-9/11 times, SITH delivers a warning to those who would give up their rights in exchange for a feeling of safety -- once you give up your rights, safety is impossible, since you no longer have control over your own fate. Lucas also uses his film to state in the strongest possible terms that absolutes are for the evil and selfish; the good know that life is too complicated for black and white judgments. Lucas should be commended for challenging his audience with such provocative themes.
If REVENGE OF THE SITH is to be the last STAR WARS movie, then it certainly ends the series on a high note.
(One warning, however. SITH is rated PG-13 for a reason, as it's the goriest STAR WARS ever. If you bring the kids, don't be surprised if they get a few nightmares.)
Responses, comments and general two-cents worth can be E-mailed to gillis662000@yahoo.com.
(Note: For all those who missed my past reviews, they're archived on Hollywoodlitsales.com. Just click the link on the main page and it'll take you to the Inner Sanctum. Love them or Hate them at your leisure!)
A graduate of USC's School of Cinema-Television, Tom McCurrie has worked as a development executive and a story analyst. He is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles and is currently working on his first novel.
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