My Star Wars Episode III review.... kinda sorta not really.
OK, I know a lot of you haven't seen it yet, so I'm not going to spoil anything. Well, I'll TRY not too. If you're worried about it, go watch the movie, and then come back and read this. Go on!
....
*waiting*
....
*cough cough*
....
Done? OK, good!
Now, if you're anything like me, you've realized that George Lucas has finally figured out the Secret Lost Art of Making a Star Wars Movie. To be exact, this means that this movie was:
1. Epic
2. Suspensefu
3. Completely devoid of Jar-Jar Binks (hooray!)
So, in an effort to make this review a little different, I'm gonna review the characters moreso than the actual plot. This might help me avoid spilling some spoilers all over the floor. I don't have a mop.
So, here we go, in no particular order:
1. Padme Amidala/Skywalker/Whatever: Seems to go through a full-term pregnancy in about 6 days. Cries alot. Does NOT pull off the "Leia Head Bun" effect nearly as well as Carrie Fisher. Cries some more. Seems to have dropped about 9,000 IQ points since Episode 1. Spends all day and all night in her apartment with C-3P0wned. Did I mention she cries a lot? Wears her hair like the "before" pictures in those Pantene Pro-V commercials, where the chick is getting all pissed at her curling iron for being a curling iron and not a dildo.
2. Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader: Displays two moods; Angry, and More Angry. Seems to have not washed his hair since Episode II. Spends a lot of time angrily looking at something in the distance. Loses a lot of things, like his friends, his wife, his babies, his chances at an Academy Award, his temper, his mind, his skin, and most of his limbs. To be fair, he does gain a neat helmet and the voice of James Earl Jones. I'd say it's an even trade. Lucas tries to make Anakin likeable in the first half hour of the movie, to make you upset that he joins the dark side. He'd have a better chance of making Hitler look like a caring father figure. Ani is a slimeball; the kind of dude who'd spend 12 hours a day at Bally's, drive a lowered M3 and slip roofies into a 15-year-old girl's Mountain Dew if he were alive today. I was almost glad when he finally turned, as Hayden seemed much more comfortable playing a tunnel-visioned evil puppet, than a tunnel-visioned only-kinda-evil puppet.
3. Obi-Wan Kenobi: Man, did Ewan MacGregor let himself go. he looked much better as a strung-out heroin addict in "Trainspotting." Anyways... Obi-Wan's getting older, wiser, and is competing with Janeane Garafolo for the Master of Sarcasm Award. You could follow up every single one of his lines with ".....NOT!" and it would make perfect sense, every time. For example: (After crash landing) "Another happy landing.... NOT!" Obi-Wan, sit down, wipe that cheesy-ass grin off your face, and think about what you just said. Do you want fat acne-ridden fanboys to quote this mindless drivel like it was scripture for the rest of history? ARGH!
4. Senator Palpatine/Darth Sidious: Mr. Sidious should rather be referred to as the "The Human Sharpei." Without the hood, he is perhaps one of the ugliest dudes ever captured on film. I mean, Golem was pretty ugly, but in a head-to-head battle, Emperor Wrinkles wins, hands down. Few people can be that ugly, and also that evil. I think he was my favorite character in the whole movie, mainly because he could walk around doing blatantly super-evil stuff, and the "all-knowing" Jedi just sat there, scratching their nuts with the force in their little pow-wow room.
5. Count Dooku/Darth Something-Or-Other: Christopher Lee enjoys taking roles in which he throws things around just by waving his arms. He doesn't care whether it's Gandalf, Obi-Wan, or a huge hunk of metal, he swings his hands to the left and WHOOSH, there it goes! He swings his hands to the right and POW! Against the wall! God forbid this guy ever attempts the Macarena or the Hand Jive. I can see the entire wedding party flying around the hall like rag dolls. I enjoyed His Dooku-ness for the small while that he was in the film. He's one of the few actors Lucas brought on that actually knows how to ACT.
5. General Grievous: Heh... heheehehHAHAHAHaahahahehheh... MAN, this guy's name is funny. Dictionary.com defines the word "grievous" as "shockingly brutal or cruel." Mr. Lucas defines the word "grievous" as "A robot what coughs a lot." I mean,seriously... who gets named after their personality? I guess that means Count Dooku keeps a numeric record of the logs squeezed out of his favorite
TeleTubby's ass? On a more serious note, though... Grievous is probably the Baddest Ass in the film, and really helped strengthen some of the action scenes. He was way cooler than I expected.
6. Yoda: Short, green, and really mean, Yoda is a fighting machine! He got a ratty-ass robe and thin gray hair, and a voice that comes from Fozzy the Bear! OK, I promise... no more raps about Star Wars. Yoda's an interesting character in this flick... He's still the wisest of the wise, but he seems a bit... cocky. Don't get me wrong, he can toss crap around the room with Dooku all day long, but he gets his butt handed to him by Sidious (AH! SPOILER!) after TRASH TALKING his pale over-microwaved ass. I have to hand it LucasArts though... at times I forgot that he was CG, and I was only enjoying a few quadrillion polygons up on the screen.
7. The Wookies: Chewy fans, please don't expect too much. The Wookies are a race of beings only slightly hairier than me, which raise their arms to the sky and make noises which sound like a muted trumpet being played by a drunk guy with a tracheotomy. It's like Richard Simmons was directing them in battle: Whack a droid, make a noise! Whack a droid, make a noise! Come on, you hairy things, you! Raise those arms in the sky! One, two, one, two! Now yell! There you go! Feel the burn! Now show me your genitals!
Ahem.
8. Mace Windu: Based on the General Grievous Naming Theory, this guy should do nothing but swing a large club at the empty air all day. Unfortunately, it seems that Lucas' intent was to take Samuel L. Jackson, Baddest of All Asses, and turn him into a Complete Stooge. Aside from the fact that he doesn't call anyone a "sucka" or a "punk-ass-foo" for the duration of the movie, he doesn't even KILL anyone in a bad-ass style. Mace is your Average Jedi: Calm, collected, and dense as a sack of rocks. He spends the movie either asking Yoda what to do, or agreeing with what Yoda says. Like I said: Stooge.
Um.... well, that's about it. There are other characters of course, but none of whom I care enough to write about. There's Senator Organa, or "Jimmy Smits With Hair That's All Wrong"... There's the droids, C-3P0wned and Artoo Deetoo, who are steadily ramping up their annoying qualities to be on par with Episode 4... and the rest of the Jedi Council, who may as well not be in the movie for all the good they do.
Don't get me wrong! Overall the movie was excellent. I can completely justify the first two crapfests as a build-up to Episode III now. It's darker, more violent, and a certainly more mature than Episode I, or "Baby's First Star Wars." I really do recommend going to see it, especially under the influence of Ritalin or Airborne. You'll thank me in the end!
....
*waiting*
....
*cough cough*
....
Done? OK, good!
Now, if you're anything like me, you've realized that George Lucas has finally figured out the Secret Lost Art of Making a Star Wars Movie. To be exact, this means that this movie was:
1. Epic
2. Suspensefu
3. Completely devoid of Jar-Jar Binks (hooray!)
So, in an effort to make this review a little different, I'm gonna review the characters moreso than the actual plot. This might help me avoid spilling some spoilers all over the floor. I don't have a mop.
So, here we go, in no particular order:
1. Padme Amidala/Skywalker/Whatever: Seems to go through a full-term pregnancy in about 6 days. Cries alot. Does NOT pull off the "Leia Head Bun" effect nearly as well as Carrie Fisher. Cries some more. Seems to have dropped about 9,000 IQ points since Episode 1. Spends all day and all night in her apartment with C-3P0wned. Did I mention she cries a lot? Wears her hair like the "before" pictures in those Pantene Pro-V commercials, where the chick is getting all pissed at her curling iron for being a curling iron and not a dildo.
2. Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader: Displays two moods; Angry, and More Angry. Seems to have not washed his hair since Episode II. Spends a lot of time angrily looking at something in the distance. Loses a lot of things, like his friends, his wife, his babies, his chances at an Academy Award, his temper, his mind, his skin, and most of his limbs. To be fair, he does gain a neat helmet and the voice of James Earl Jones. I'd say it's an even trade. Lucas tries to make Anakin likeable in the first half hour of the movie, to make you upset that he joins the dark side. He'd have a better chance of making Hitler look like a caring father figure. Ani is a slimeball; the kind of dude who'd spend 12 hours a day at Bally's, drive a lowered M3 and slip roofies into a 15-year-old girl's Mountain Dew if he were alive today. I was almost glad when he finally turned, as Hayden seemed much more comfortable playing a tunnel-visioned evil puppet, than a tunnel-visioned only-kinda-evil puppet.
3. Obi-Wan Kenobi: Man, did Ewan MacGregor let himself go. he looked much better as a strung-out heroin addict in "Trainspotting." Anyways... Obi-Wan's getting older, wiser, and is competing with Janeane Garafolo for the Master of Sarcasm Award. You could follow up every single one of his lines with ".....NOT!" and it would make perfect sense, every time. For example: (After crash landing) "Another happy landing.... NOT!" Obi-Wan, sit down, wipe that cheesy-ass grin off your face, and think about what you just said. Do you want fat acne-ridden fanboys to quote this mindless drivel like it was scripture for the rest of history? ARGH!
4. Senator Palpatine/Darth Sidious: Mr. Sidious should rather be referred to as the "The Human Sharpei." Without the hood, he is perhaps one of the ugliest dudes ever captured on film. I mean, Golem was pretty ugly, but in a head-to-head battle, Emperor Wrinkles wins, hands down. Few people can be that ugly, and also that evil. I think he was my favorite character in the whole movie, mainly because he could walk around doing blatantly super-evil stuff, and the "all-knowing" Jedi just sat there, scratching their nuts with the force in their little pow-wow room.
5. Count Dooku/Darth Something-Or-Other: Christopher Lee enjoys taking roles in which he throws things around just by waving his arms. He doesn't care whether it's Gandalf, Obi-Wan, or a huge hunk of metal, he swings his hands to the left and WHOOSH, there it goes! He swings his hands to the right and POW! Against the wall! God forbid this guy ever attempts the Macarena or the Hand Jive. I can see the entire wedding party flying around the hall like rag dolls. I enjoyed His Dooku-ness for the small while that he was in the film. He's one of the few actors Lucas brought on that actually knows how to ACT.
5. General Grievous: Heh... heheehehHAHAHAHaahahahehheh... MAN, this guy's name is funny. Dictionary.com defines the word "grievous" as "shockingly brutal or cruel." Mr. Lucas defines the word "grievous" as "A robot what coughs a lot." I mean,seriously... who gets named after their personality? I guess that means Count Dooku keeps a numeric record of the logs squeezed out of his favorite
TeleTubby's ass? On a more serious note, though... Grievous is probably the Baddest Ass in the film, and really helped strengthen some of the action scenes. He was way cooler than I expected.
6. Yoda: Short, green, and really mean, Yoda is a fighting machine! He got a ratty-ass robe and thin gray hair, and a voice that comes from Fozzy the Bear! OK, I promise... no more raps about Star Wars. Yoda's an interesting character in this flick... He's still the wisest of the wise, but he seems a bit... cocky. Don't get me wrong, he can toss crap around the room with Dooku all day long, but he gets his butt handed to him by Sidious (AH! SPOILER!) after TRASH TALKING his pale over-microwaved ass. I have to hand it LucasArts though... at times I forgot that he was CG, and I was only enjoying a few quadrillion polygons up on the screen.
7. The Wookies: Chewy fans, please don't expect too much. The Wookies are a race of beings only slightly hairier than me, which raise their arms to the sky and make noises which sound like a muted trumpet being played by a drunk guy with a tracheotomy. It's like Richard Simmons was directing them in battle: Whack a droid, make a noise! Whack a droid, make a noise! Come on, you hairy things, you! Raise those arms in the sky! One, two, one, two! Now yell! There you go! Feel the burn! Now show me your genitals!
Ahem.
8. Mace Windu: Based on the General Grievous Naming Theory, this guy should do nothing but swing a large club at the empty air all day. Unfortunately, it seems that Lucas' intent was to take Samuel L. Jackson, Baddest of All Asses, and turn him into a Complete Stooge. Aside from the fact that he doesn't call anyone a "sucka" or a "punk-ass-foo" for the duration of the movie, he doesn't even KILL anyone in a bad-ass style. Mace is your Average Jedi: Calm, collected, and dense as a sack of rocks. He spends the movie either asking Yoda what to do, or agreeing with what Yoda says. Like I said: Stooge.
Um.... well, that's about it. There are other characters of course, but none of whom I care enough to write about. There's Senator Organa, or "Jimmy Smits With Hair That's All Wrong"... There's the droids, C-3P0wned and Artoo Deetoo, who are steadily ramping up their annoying qualities to be on par with Episode 4... and the rest of the Jedi Council, who may as well not be in the movie for all the good they do.
Don't get me wrong! Overall the movie was excellent. I can completely justify the first two crapfests as a build-up to Episode III now. It's darker, more violent, and a certainly more mature than Episode I, or "Baby's First Star Wars." I really do recommend going to see it, especially under the influence of Ritalin or Airborne. You'll thank me in the end!