My rating: Pictures good, words bad.

Zing! Pow! What a spectacle! If ever there was a man born for grandiose movie making, George Lucas is that man. I'm right there on the bandwagon with everyone else on that argument. The outer space battle sequences, the light saber duels and all the other total throwdowns they had in this movie... I was left blown away. Whatever George Lucas is paying his visual effects department, I hope he gives them all a raise.

Or here's an idea: Give all those visual effects guys the salaries of whoever helped him write the dialogue. Because, George, those people are NOT doing you any favors. What's that, George says? He wrote it on his own? Well, then, say I, don't let me ever, ever catch you doing that again.

Sorry. I'm refocusing.

I walked into this movie after it had already been out a week, expecting great things. People were singing its praises, after all... even Roger Ebert. And with him I agree... the spectacle of the movie makes it totally worth watching. I'll no doubt buy the DVD and add it to my collection. Especially since, with DVD you can skip those scenes... oh, those painful runs of pointless dialogue...

If I were Natalie Portman, I would get a rubber hose and really beat George down with it. I mean, here you are with one of the best actresses in Hollywood... she's just done "Garden State," she's proven she can act like a champ. What did he do to her? He filled her poor mouth with all kind of horrible, cliche-ridden dialogue. He makes her stay in her room through the whole movie, waiting for her man to show up and kiss her face, so she can tell him how being in love makes her beautiful. No, I swear. That was a line. And not the worst of them. What happened to the butt-kicking Senator? What happened to that feisty chick from the first two movies? Too late. She can't answer you, Alex. She's been smothered by one of her own cliches.

Hayden Christensen does a fair job with the material he's given... considering he's in every single one of those horrid "love" scenes with poor Natalie, though, you already find yourself a little irritated, even before he goes bringing out the ANGRY EYES! That's right, Anakin Skywalker is never, ever happy. He's brooding, and sullen, and has this really intense thing he does with his eyes that makes you think he's going to break into a Wookie roar at any moment.

Anyway.

Lucas spends a lot of time tying up loose ends in this movie, in grand, Lucas-style scene progressions... and that, I appreciated. Everything is all nice and tied up at the end. Some of it may have been a little rushed... but hey, at least it's there. The new characters and creatures in this movie were nothing less than fascinating. It was-- it REALLY was-- a visually incredible movie. Totally worth my six bucks. If you look around the bubble gum-infused lines, there was a really great character progression going on in Anakin's transformation to Vader. Ewan McGregor was superb. Samuel L. Jackson was great.

But next time, go ahead and spring for the writers, George.

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