Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith

Best of the prequels, but that’s a low bar

Action/Sci-fi ‧ 140 minutes ‧ PG-13 ‧ 2007

“You were the chosen one!”

Revenge of the Sith is the best of the prequels, and yet I can't find myself loving the prequels. George Lucas is once again at the helm. Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman, and Ian McDiarmid lead the cast. The film’s biggest problem is that it rushes to set the table for the original trilogy. It looks impressive and sounds immense, yet it often feels hollow. The plot clicks together; the people inside it rarely do.

Anakin’s fall is the sticking point. It starts quickly, then gets quicker, and by the end, I never truly felt the shift. The film highlights the fear of loss, a bruised ego, and Palpatine’s grooming, but it treats those motives as mere bullet points. Scenes that should register as a slow moral collapse play like a switch being flipped. I do not see a person slipping away beat by beat. It reads like an assignment, not a tragedy, because we all know where this is heading; we simply have to accept the turn rather than it being built up.

The writing for the others isn’t any better, feeling both busy and thin at the same time. Lots of lore, stiff dialogue, and Jedi Council debates that sound important but rarely push any character. For long stretches, every talk is a pit stop between effects, leaving characters as monologue machines rather than characters. Padmé is left staring out windows. Obi-Wan fares better, but even his strongest moments serve logistics more than relationships. The choice to have him separate from Anakin as the turn happens makes sense in universe, but hurts any interaction we could have seen between them.

The action is constant and, after a while, numbing. The opener, the Utapau chase, Order 66, and the Mustafar duel are staged with precision. But, if I haven't cared for these characters up until that point, why would I suddenly care about them now? When the film slows down, for example, Obi-Wan's plea on the lava bank, it finally locates the raw feeling it seeks. Then it suddenly moves to the next setup.

By this point, setup becomes the goal. Babies are born and hidden. The suit is assembled. Planets are assigned future meaning. The seams show. What should feel inevitable reads as an obligation. Events occur because they must, not because the story earns them.

I wanted more Vader, but that is not the central problem. The film treats Vader as a finished label rather than a person we understand from within. Without a fuller descent, the rise feels empty. The famous “Noooo” only underlines the gap, trying to add emotion, and landing on comedy.

However, two elements work perfectly. John Williams delivers a superb score once more. “Battle of the Heroes” and “Anakin’s Betrayal” carry more feeling than many dialogue scenes and stitch together moments that might drift apart. Another is Ian McDiarmid’s Palpatine, who is magnetic. The whispers, the smiles, and the gradual pull toward the dark supply the film’s only steady sense of danger.

The weirdest part of the film is that the recent context complicates it. The Obi-Wan Kenobi series adds space and check-ins that make some beats here feel misaligned. Not ruinous, just odd. The show finds breathing room that the movie lacks, which only underscores how compressed this script is. This did not impact my review of the movie in any way; it was just something I felt like needed to be addressed.

In the end, Revenge of the Sith runs like a smooth conveyor belt. It delivers what it needs with craft and speed rather than with soul. Best of the prequels, yes, but that ultimately doesn't mean much. I give it 2.5/5.

(However, we can learn from our mistakes. The sequels proved that. Right?)