Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005): C

Thankful it’s over, I am. After two pathetic prequels and an avalanche of out-of-proportion hype, George Lucas’ intergalactic saga concludes with Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, a ponderous series finale that finally depicts Anakin Skywalker’s (Hayden Christensen) transformation into Darth Vader. Lucas still hasn’t learned how to infuse his technically impressive CGI spacescapes with anything approaching compelling human emotion, and Episode III’s wooden dialogue remains awash in goofy names (Mace Windu sounds like a window-cleaning solution, Count Dooku like a children’s cereal), laughable references to kids as “younglings,” and lines such as “Hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo.” While nominally better than its immediate predecessors thanks to a pervasive atmosphere of catastrophic doom, the film’s set pieces are either overly frantic (the opening aerial dogfight) or dull clones of past installments’ superior fights (Anakin and Obi-Wan’s duel pales in comparison to Episode I’s three-way lightsaber skirmish). And even worse, the long-anticipated Dark Side denouement arrives, somewhat surprisingly, with little more than a whimper. Lucas tries to infuse his juvenile franchise with a political subtext that equates Supreme Chancellor Palpatine/Sith Lord Sidious (Ian McDiarmid) with President Bush. Yet given that the Star Wars films are models of black-and-white, good-vs-evil fantasy – their lack of subtlety epitomized by the staging of Anakin’s descent into villainy on a planet awash in hellfire – it’s nearly impossible to take seriously any parallels between the gray-shaded real world and Lucas’ galaxy far, far away.