Thursday, May 19, 2005
So Revenge of the Sith is indeed watchable, and I'm excited and not a little relieved to report that it was actually quite good.
I saw the movie at 12:01 last night with Rick and his future father- and brothers-in-law, in a crowded but not entirely full York Theater in Elmhurst. The previews stank, although the salacious thrill of a 20-foot-tall image of Angelina Jolie in lingerie remains nearly unrivaled. Then the lights went down, the crowd shut up, and the crawl started up the screen.
An aside here about Elmhurst York Theaters: not very good sound. Having said that:
Wow! I still get the chills when the main title comes up, and I felt like a little kid reading the synopsis as it faded into the distance. It was pretty succinct this time, which was nice. My hopes were high that Action would be more prevalent this time around; I was immediately gratified to realize that would definitely be the case. I'd read that Ep. III starts "faster than any movie since Saving Private Ryan," a testament to which I'll avow here. The film begins with an entertaining space battle featuring much-improved CGI--actually the first CGI from ILM that rivals the model work they first did almost 30 years ago--and quickly we're inside a ship's hangar with Anakin and Obi-Wan as they destroy some droids and rescue the Chancellor. The dialogue showed immediate improvement over Episodes I and II; additionally there was some humor involving the inimitable R2-D2 that I actually laughed at. Jar-Jar Binks was, I'm sure you'll all be relieved to hear, nowhere to be found.
From there it was pretty much some Galactic politicking, Padme and Anakin googly-eyes nonsense (though whatsername actually looked quite fetching despite the costume dept's best attempts to make her look ridiculous), and Anakin having bad dreams that show off some of the visual flair for which G. Lucas was once known. You could have fallen asleep during this part--as some of the folks I was with actually did.
Thankfully that didn't last very long, which is good because we had virtually the entire running time of Ep. II to fill us in on this garbage. Lucas really seems to have heeded the call of the masses on this one, delivering us a lot of what we wanted all along: more Jedi ass-kicking. This time it comes courtesy of Ewan McGregor's insouciant (for a Jedi) and swashbuckling Obi-Wan Kenobi, battling the cyborg General Grievous whose name I actually like quite a bit, thanks. McGregor delivers probably the prequels' best acting here, completely filling my expectations of how a bad-ass Jedi should really look and act. There's also a nifty and very nearly subtle (!) bit of foreshadowing when the good General is taken down. I won't ruin it for you.
Then of course there's the delicious pleasure of Ian McDiarmid chewing scenery as Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious/the Emperor. Lucas really lucked out getting the exact same guy to play the Emperor in both series, because McDiarmid clearly relishes playing the frighteningly evil Sith lord. There is a scene between Anakin and Palpatine that is easily the creepiest thing these movies have seen since the dark cave on Dagobah, with dialogue that ranks with some of the best Lucas has ever done--admittedly a low bar to clear.
But above all this movie has more gravity and punch than either of its predecessors, and I don't think the early critics were totally unwarranted in saying it was the series' best since Empire. It's far from flawless: it drags at times; the dialogue is still pretty stiff; and there is the weird problem of the movie's tone: there's the Flash Gordonesque romp of the first section, the creepy but pretty standard middle stanza--dominated by McDiarmid--then things go straight to hell (literally) as Anakin becomes Darth Vader. I'd recommend the movie unhesitatingly as a popcorn flick if this transformation weren't so punishingly bleak, but ultimately that's where this story must take us.
It's worth noting that I was genuinely moved by the first sound of Vader's ominous breathing, no mean feat considering we've all heard it fifty thousand million times. I don't know what more to say to recommend the film, after having said so much. I've thought about this movie non-stop since I saw it. I'm definitely going to see it again. If you read this blog, you probably like Star Wars, so you should do yourself a favor and see it, too. But prepare yourself. I appreciated being Lucas' target audience again, at long last, but this movie changed the way I view the series. I was challenged by it, for the first time. Maybe that says something about me as a person. More likely, I think it says something about how good this movie is.
I saw the movie at 12:01 last night with Rick and his future father- and brothers-in-law, in a crowded but not entirely full York Theater in Elmhurst. The previews stank, although the salacious thrill of a 20-foot-tall image of Angelina Jolie in lingerie remains nearly unrivaled. Then the lights went down, the crowd shut up, and the crawl started up the screen.
An aside here about Elmhurst York Theaters: not very good sound. Having said that:
Wow! I still get the chills when the main title comes up, and I felt like a little kid reading the synopsis as it faded into the distance. It was pretty succinct this time, which was nice. My hopes were high that Action would be more prevalent this time around; I was immediately gratified to realize that would definitely be the case. I'd read that Ep. III starts "faster than any movie since Saving Private Ryan," a testament to which I'll avow here. The film begins with an entertaining space battle featuring much-improved CGI--actually the first CGI from ILM that rivals the model work they first did almost 30 years ago--and quickly we're inside a ship's hangar with Anakin and Obi-Wan as they destroy some droids and rescue the Chancellor. The dialogue showed immediate improvement over Episodes I and II; additionally there was some humor involving the inimitable R2-D2 that I actually laughed at. Jar-Jar Binks was, I'm sure you'll all be relieved to hear, nowhere to be found.
From there it was pretty much some Galactic politicking, Padme and Anakin googly-eyes nonsense (though whatsername actually looked quite fetching despite the costume dept's best attempts to make her look ridiculous), and Anakin having bad dreams that show off some of the visual flair for which G. Lucas was once known. You could have fallen asleep during this part--as some of the folks I was with actually did.
Thankfully that didn't last very long, which is good because we had virtually the entire running time of Ep. II to fill us in on this garbage. Lucas really seems to have heeded the call of the masses on this one, delivering us a lot of what we wanted all along: more Jedi ass-kicking. This time it comes courtesy of Ewan McGregor's insouciant (for a Jedi) and swashbuckling Obi-Wan Kenobi, battling the cyborg General Grievous whose name I actually like quite a bit, thanks. McGregor delivers probably the prequels' best acting here, completely filling my expectations of how a bad-ass Jedi should really look and act. There's also a nifty and very nearly subtle (!) bit of foreshadowing when the good General is taken down. I won't ruin it for you.
Then of course there's the delicious pleasure of Ian McDiarmid chewing scenery as Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious/the Emperor. Lucas really lucked out getting the exact same guy to play the Emperor in both series, because McDiarmid clearly relishes playing the frighteningly evil Sith lord. There is a scene between Anakin and Palpatine that is easily the creepiest thing these movies have seen since the dark cave on Dagobah, with dialogue that ranks with some of the best Lucas has ever done--admittedly a low bar to clear.
But above all this movie has more gravity and punch than either of its predecessors, and I don't think the early critics were totally unwarranted in saying it was the series' best since Empire. It's far from flawless: it drags at times; the dialogue is still pretty stiff; and there is the weird problem of the movie's tone: there's the Flash Gordonesque romp of the first section, the creepy but pretty standard middle stanza--dominated by McDiarmid--then things go straight to hell (literally) as Anakin becomes Darth Vader. I'd recommend the movie unhesitatingly as a popcorn flick if this transformation weren't so punishingly bleak, but ultimately that's where this story must take us.
It's worth noting that I was genuinely moved by the first sound of Vader's ominous breathing, no mean feat considering we've all heard it fifty thousand million times. I don't know what more to say to recommend the film, after having said so much. I've thought about this movie non-stop since I saw it. I'm definitely going to see it again. If you read this blog, you probably like Star Wars, so you should do yourself a favor and see it, too. But prepare yourself. I appreciated being Lucas' target audience again, at long last, but this movie changed the way I view the series. I was challenged by it, for the first time. Maybe that says something about me as a person. More likely, I think it says something about how good this movie is.
