Tiffany and I went to see Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith Sunday, thanks to the magnanimity of Grandma. I was sort of ambivalent about going to see it, probably because the previous two movies (Episode I: Anakin the Golly Gee Boy and Episode II: Attack of the Wooden Lovers) were so awful. Witness my lack of interest: I didn’t know exactly when this movie opened, I hadn’t been following reviews much, I wasn’t obsessing over trailers. I did realize that I would be interested in seeing it in a theater, to get the full effect, and when Tiffany suggested we get Grandma to watch Aidan, I thought it was an inspired idea.

So we went to see it. And it was fine. Good even, towards the end. But I’m not one of those guys who can overlook bad acting and worse dialogue just because the action scenes are good, and the movie wraps up a story I’ve been following since I was eight.

I might see it again, though probably not in a theater. Heck, I might even try Episode II again, because the last (and only) time I saw it I couldn’t pay much attention to the plot for all the horrible speaking. But is Sith a tremendous movie? No.

The good:

• Watching Ewan McGregor channel Sir Alec Guiness again. He’s so good at that.
• Watching R2 break out the hammer, man. We knew the little droid had it in him.
• The space battle at the beginning. The opening “shot” is spectacular. I say “shot” because it is all computer graphics, so it doesn’t quite have the same cachet as some of the memorable single-camera openings of classic film. But it is cool. I haven’t been so immersed in the sheer enormity and fury of a space battle like that since I played Rogue Leader on my GameCube.
• The light saber fights, mostly. A lot of them are sort of pedestrian, and some of the wielders are clearly beyond their, um, skill level. Christopher Lee, bless him, looks like a wooden mummy when he’s “fighting”. And there are so many close ups and CG shots of the Emperor while he is fighting that I think Ian McDiarmid could have shot them sitting down. Of course, I’m sure the epic struggle between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi from _Episode IV: A New Hope_ will seem similarly staid next to some of the more recent duel stagings.

The bad:

• Oh my God, the dialogue.
• And what is with the five second scenes? Showing Anakin and Padme in a soulful embrace for five seconds does not make a love story.
• Still no grasp of the scope of this Empire thing… it’s like somebody went loopy with Bryce and created all these funky planetscapes, and made them stand in for the variety and multitude of the Galaxy. Was that a purple and pink mushroom planet I saw go by?
• Oh, and the dialogue.
• The acting was pretty bad, too.

A couple of reviewers have noted that what this movie really made them want to do was watch the original trilogy again. And I echo that. I’ve added Eps. IV, V, and VI (the last one reluctantly) to my Netflix Queue. I especially want to see what Ben has to say to Luke when they first meet, now that I know the details. Also, I expect a lot of the cryptic stuff Yoda says in The Empire Strikes Back will make more sense to me.

In the end? Go see Sith, in the theater. It is worth your $10. Just don’t expect the world.