Star Wars III Review: Poor Execution

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

It seems every review I read sings the praises of the new Star Wars movie, and while I definitely enjoyed it, I have some major gripes. Here are the main ones:

First of all, I hated the acting; it caused me pain. I also thought many of the scenes were quite cheesy — especially a lot of the Emperor ones.

Worst of all for me, however, was Anakin’s character. The guy playing him is a fcktard to rule all fcktards. He, along with the script, completely ruined the transition of Anakin to Vader. Consider the fact that Anakin was best buddies and mostly a good guy like 10 minutes before he starts dicing through children that he’s known and cared for for most of their lives. And all this happened as a result of a conversation with the Emperor — not a blast of energy, not a drug, not a hypnosis session — nothing. Just an order to go and kill the Jedi (to include his best friend and a bunch of kids). I just can’t buy it.

I didn’t see the struggle that should have come with this transition, and the struggle that they tried to show was shallow and poorly-placed in my view. Him thinking, “Jedi…bad…” doesn’t equate to the struggle of having to kill the people closest to him — especially since like a day before he was about to strike down the emperor after finding out he was the Sith lord. It just doesn’t add up.

I don’t think the story is the problem though; the story is probably one of the coolest ever; it’s the execution that got me. It could have been done far better if the script was different, but I’m willing to grant that the book may be far superior due to time constraints in the movie. I mean look at Natalie Portman…she is a badass actress in everything she’s been in. In this movie she was quite lackluster — even bad. The romance scenes were downright B-movie stuff. Seriously, her saying “Hold me, Anakin. Hold me like you did on Naboo.” was one of the worst lines I’ve ever heard. I didn’t even like Sam Jackson’s parts; they were dull and lifeless — again, all due to the script , not the actors.

Oh well, it was still an awesome movie, and I’ll definitely be seeing it again. Perhaps I’ll enjoy it more the next few times I see it.