Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith DVD Review

"STAR WARS EPISODE III - REVENGE OF THE SITH" reviews

DVD

STAR WARS EPISODE III - REVENGE OF THE SITH

Author

anonymous

Date reviewed

2005-10-28 15:34:42

Provider

DVD Review

Time for all you thirty something's to finally put your childhood to bed (after the obligatory marathon screening of all six movies of course), because George Lucas promises this will be his final Star Wars movie (his?).

After The Phantom Menace proved the mother of all letdowns for its overexcited audience and 2002's Attack Of The Clones proved marginally better, but ultimately messy, so punters had good reason to be sceptical about this final prequel. Fortunately Episode III is a return to the mind-boggling fantasy adventure kids of the late '70s and '80s grew up loving.

The plot holds no surprises, but Lucas bridges the events between Sith and his 1977 original with enough verve and inventiveness to keep audiences intrigued as the dots are joined fin front of them. Opening with a jaw-dropping 20-minute space battle in which Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi attempt to rescue Chancellor Palpatine from the clutches of droid villain General Grievous, it's a perfect introduction for a breathless two-and-a-half hours.

The script, despite the odd hammy buddy gags, suffers less from the paceless political jargon that blighted the last two outings, allowing Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen and, in particular, Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine/The Emperor to give their finest performances of the opening trilogy.

Visually, this tears strips off the rest of the celebrated saga, taking the effects up yet another ten notches with a series of epic three-dimensional CGI wars/countless light saber battles. And as Lucas, and the film's 12A rating, warned, it is the darkest, and bloodiest Star Wars movie in this series. Aside from Anakin's transformation into Darth Vader, highlights include a staggering battle on Chewbacca's (yep he's back) home planet of Kashykk, an old fashioned showdown between Kenobi and the weezing Grievous.

As with all the Star Wars prequels the film comes armed with more special features and extras than you can shake a Bantha stick at. Besides the Lucas commentary, highlights include the hour-plus doc Within A Minute, the It's For Real doc hosted by stuntman Nick Gillard, The Chosen One Doc, which delves into the history of Vader, numerous featurettes originally available online, deleted scenes and much much more.