star wars review
As an actor, [Hayden] Christensen must find it in himself to show the embryo of darkness stirring within Akakin Skywalker. And how does he do this? By looking up beneath lowered brows and giving the unmistakable impression that he is very, very cross. If Princess Diana had gone over to the Dark Side, she would have looked a lot like this.
- excerpt from a one-star review from The Press, 21 May 2005.
And now for my own scathing review, which will conveniently go into the magazine that's coming out next week. Ain't it grand when you have control over creative content of print media, even shoddy toilet paper such as the one I edit? I feel all special indeed.
Let me preface this by saying that I am one of the last few people in the western world who hadn’t seen Episodes IV, V or VI. That’s right, I’m actually gonna see the entire Star Wars series in order. And, as a rare commodity such as myself, I’m going to try and retain some sort of objective viewpoint by assessing Episode III not by comparison, but on its own merits.
And own merits it hasn’t got. You all know the premise: Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) turns to the Dark Side and becomes - shock horror - Darth Vader. The questions are How and Why. And by god, this movie doesn’t answer them half as well as you think it should.
Being the key role in a Very Important Film, you’d think Christensen should be able to act. You’d think his performance in Attack of the Clones was an unfortunate mixture of timing and bad script; you’d think with a little meat to his role this time, he’d come across as halfway believable. You’d also be wrong on all three counts. When wife Padme (Natalie Portman) announces she’s pregnant, the expression on Anakin’s face is as follows: happy! - worried. - happy! - worried. - happy! Acting in serial, we call it: the utter inability to display two conflicting emotions at once. And this is the guy who has to show how love, anger, pride and lust for power drove one man to the Dark Side. We have ourselves a conundrum.
The key to Anakin’s descent is, as we should all know, his love for Padme which sends him flying off the edge of reason. All very dramatic theatre, except these two don’t have enough chemistry to fit on the tip of a pin; there was more apparent sexual tension between Anakin and mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor). Given that Padme and Anakin never looked as though they gave two hoots about each other in the first place, the latter’s going off the deep end was never validated. Throw into the mix stilted dialogue that a nine-year-old could have written, cheesy directing, inappropriate score, horrible displays of bad characterisation (Darth Vader: “My wife's dead? [howls to sky] Nooooo!”) and some truly abysmal acting, and you’ve got yourself a movie. Too bad it was considered The Movie by many.
Good points are few and far between, but there were a handful. Given my fangirlish propensity toward ‘Mr Billowy Coat, King of Pain’, I did enjoy those big sweepy black cloaks. The climactic showdown between Anakin and Obi-Wan really wasn’t halfway bad. And Yoda still kicks arse. Christopher Lee still acted everybody else off the map, so it was really too bad about him getting killed off in the first fifteen minutes. The overall story arc did actually make good dramatic sense, so it was really too bad that George Lucas took it upon himself to do everything from the idea to the production to the directing to, ye gods, even the script. You can see how the rest of the argument goes.
Of course, no matter what I say here, you’re gonna go see it anyway. However, I feel compelled to say one thing in closing: the multitudes of starry-eyed fans who came out pronouncing that Episode III is the great white hope that saved the trilogy from total and utter failure - what movie were they watching?
Am making a Simon vid to Radiohead's Street Spirit. It'll be entirely in black and white and, in my pre-finished-product starry-eyed phase, be the Simon vid to end all Simon vids. Ha!
- excerpt from a one-star review from The Press, 21 May 2005.
And now for my own scathing review, which will conveniently go into the magazine that's coming out next week. Ain't it grand when you have control over creative content of print media, even shoddy toilet paper such as the one I edit? I feel all special indeed.
Let me preface this by saying that I am one of the last few people in the western world who hadn’t seen Episodes IV, V or VI. That’s right, I’m actually gonna see the entire Star Wars series in order. And, as a rare commodity such as myself, I’m going to try and retain some sort of objective viewpoint by assessing Episode III not by comparison, but on its own merits.
And own merits it hasn’t got. You all know the premise: Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) turns to the Dark Side and becomes - shock horror - Darth Vader. The questions are How and Why. And by god, this movie doesn’t answer them half as well as you think it should.
Being the key role in a Very Important Film, you’d think Christensen should be able to act. You’d think his performance in Attack of the Clones was an unfortunate mixture of timing and bad script; you’d think with a little meat to his role this time, he’d come across as halfway believable. You’d also be wrong on all three counts. When wife Padme (Natalie Portman) announces she’s pregnant, the expression on Anakin’s face is as follows: happy! - worried. - happy! - worried. - happy! Acting in serial, we call it: the utter inability to display two conflicting emotions at once. And this is the guy who has to show how love, anger, pride and lust for power drove one man to the Dark Side. We have ourselves a conundrum.
The key to Anakin’s descent is, as we should all know, his love for Padme which sends him flying off the edge of reason. All very dramatic theatre, except these two don’t have enough chemistry to fit on the tip of a pin; there was more apparent sexual tension between Anakin and mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor). Given that Padme and Anakin never looked as though they gave two hoots about each other in the first place, the latter’s going off the deep end was never validated. Throw into the mix stilted dialogue that a nine-year-old could have written, cheesy directing, inappropriate score, horrible displays of bad characterisation (Darth Vader: “My wife's dead? [howls to sky] Nooooo!”) and some truly abysmal acting, and you’ve got yourself a movie. Too bad it was considered The Movie by many.
Good points are few and far between, but there were a handful. Given my fangirlish propensity toward ‘Mr Billowy Coat, King of Pain’, I did enjoy those big sweepy black cloaks. The climactic showdown between Anakin and Obi-Wan really wasn’t halfway bad. And Yoda still kicks arse. Christopher Lee still acted everybody else off the map, so it was really too bad about him getting killed off in the first fifteen minutes. The overall story arc did actually make good dramatic sense, so it was really too bad that George Lucas took it upon himself to do everything from the idea to the production to the directing to, ye gods, even the script. You can see how the rest of the argument goes.
Of course, no matter what I say here, you’re gonna go see it anyway. However, I feel compelled to say one thing in closing: the multitudes of starry-eyed fans who came out pronouncing that Episode III is the great white hope that saved the trilogy from total and utter failure - what movie were they watching?
Am making a Simon vid to Radiohead's Street Spirit. It'll be entirely in black and white and, in my pre-finished-product starry-eyed phase, be the Simon vid to end all Simon vids. Ha!