Well I went to see it last night and it was actually better then I thought it would be. My expectations were greatly lowered by Attack of the Clones and I wouldn't be surprised by a real crapfest. The political stuff was totally overblown and did not get in the way of the movie at all.
The acting was still wooden and fake feeling but I guess that can be chalked up to Christensen being a terrible actor. Almost everything he does from the whiney bitch he was at the beginning to parts he is shedding a tear near the end was terrible. Also Portman who is normally a decent actress had no-chemistry with her supposed husband. Actually, it really seemed that the actors didn't like one another at all and it came through in their performance. She also seemed to be in weepy women mode the whole time. Much different then the feisty princess mode she was on in the other two movies.
McGregor was as good as he could be in the roll. He was trying to channel Alec Guinness sometimes but it worked for me. At the end when he was battling Darth you were feeling his emotion come through. Too bad he couldn't have been paired up with a decent actor and not wooden-man Hayden.
The effects were decent enough for a movie like this but they did not give a sense of a real world at all. I guess this may have been intentional to give the movie an unreal quality but I seriously doubt that. In some scenes the fakey green screens were everywhere and even that lizard-bird thing Obi-wan was riding looked like ILM "magic" and not a real creature. Some of the worlds were the Jedi were getting killed at were just laughably fakey looking. Finally, the enemy droids (even General Grievous) never felt like anything at all. They really needed to have a few real metal prop droids that got cut in half to give them the sense they were battling a real thing.
One good thing though is they used sets a bit more then in the other two movies. So some scenes were nicely rooted in reality with only the fakey CGI in the windows or background. The scenes in the Corellian Corvette were the best because I think that was all set-building. Also the lava world at the end looked as real as anything in the prequels. I have a feeling it was because it was so dark but maybe ILM went all out to make it look real.
The plot was fairly decent for the most part and it seemed believable that Anakin would turn to the dark side to save his wife. The Jedi were really arrogant asses and almost seemed to deserve their comeupance. It was idiotic that Anakin would have been kicked out of the council for having a child with his wedded wife. (I assume the Jedi knew he was married but I don't remember what happened in Clones) I guess the Jedi code prevents the propagation of the species. Good thing they never got into power.
Also how they put in the council but didn't make him a Master for the first time in history would have rankled anyone. I guess he was just a glorified secretary. And immediately they treated him like a tool to get info from the Chancellor. I guess there is no bugging technology in this high tech world. "Now that you are a member of this council, well not a full member but you can sit in this chair, we need you to betray your friend. k-thnx bye." Even when Anakin told them that the Chancellor was a Sith lord they said some stuff like we'll check and after that we will trust you. I was not sorry to see the Jedi die.
The part where Anakin fell to the Darkside seemed really, really quick. "What have I done?" to slaughtering younglings in under a minute and a half. And who ever thought of using the world younglings needs to be fired. It was a laughable word to describe quite a heinous crime. When Portman said "you killed younglings?" You need to feel horror and not supress laughter. I think if they called them Young Padawans, Jedi Youth or even the Children it would have been much better.
To sum up though, the last 30 minutes was worth the entire movie in my mind. All the wooden exchanges between Anakin and Padme and the fakey green screens were worth it. The lightsaber duels were fantastic and how Darth Vader was made (complete with a medical droid from Empire that put on Luke's robot hand) showed how the prequels should have been. Even the scene of them watching the Death Star being made with Moff Tarkin looking on was outstanding.
Finally, the part where Owen is standing with the sunset in the background was one of the best in the movie IMO. It dovetailed exactly with the scene in New Hope with Luke looking at the same sun which was rising I think. First goosebumps of the entire Prequels.
If the last 30 minutes weren't in the movie I would have put this above Menace and Clones but not by very much. But with those 30 mintues I have to put this one right behind New Hope and Empire. All in all, despite its faults, it was a very decent movie and a satisfying end to the Star Wars movie universe. It may even be worth owning the DVD. Which is big in my book.
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