'Yeth,' it's better than 'Star Wars'

With Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, the Star Wars cycle at last comes to an end -- or rather to a middle, since the second trilogy, of which this is the final installment, comes before the first in faraway-galaxy history even though it comes later in the history of US popular culture.

Like many others whose idea of movies was formed by (and to some extent against) the galactically later, terrestrially earlier Star Wars trilogy, I was disappointed by The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. So I approached the recent press screening of Episode III in New York warily, and perhaps a little wearily, though to balance my own trepidation I brought along two fans whose enthusiasm this year easily matched my own in 1977, when I was a little older than they are now and when Star Wars -- oh, all right, Episode IV: A New Hope -- landed in my hometown.

I was anticipating, at least, a measure of relief: Finally, this extravagant, ambitious enterprise, a dominant fact of our collective cultural life for nearly 30 years, would be over. But I was hoping, a little anxiously, for more. Would George Lucas at last restore some of the old grandeur and excitement to his up-to-the-minute Industrial Light and Magic? Would my grown-up longing for a return to the wide-eyed enthusiasm of my own moviegoing boyhood -- and my undiminished hunger for entertainment with sweep and power as well as noise and dazzle -- be satisfied by Revenge of the Sith?

The answer is yeth.

This is by far the best film in the more recent trilogy, and also the best of the four episodes Lucas has directed. That's right (and my inner 11-year-old shudders as I type this): It's better than Star Wars.

Revenge of the Sith ranks with The Empire Strikes Back (directed by Irvin Kershner in 1980) as the richest and most challenging movie in the cycle. It comes closer than any of the other episodes to realizing Lucas' frequently reiterated dream of bringing the combination of vigorous spectacle and mythic resonance he found in the films of Akira Kurosawa into American commercial cinema.

To be sure, some of the shortcomings of Phantom Menace (1999) and Attack of the Clones (2002) are still in evidence, and Lucas's indifference to two fairly important aspects of moviemaking -- acting and writing -- is remarkable.

Hayden Christensen plays Anakin Skywalker's descent into evil as a series of petulant bad moods. Natalie Portman, as Senator (formerly Queen) Padme Amidala, to whom Anakin is secretly married, does not have the range to reconcile the complicated and conflicting demands of love and political leadership.

Even the more assured performers -- Samuel Jackson as the Jedi master Mace Windu, Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jimmy Smits as Senator Bail Organa (note the surname) -- are constrained by their obligation to speechify. Lucas, who wrote the script (reportedly with the uncredited assistance of Tom Stoppard), is not one to imply a theme if he can stuff it into a character's mouth.

Ian McDiarmid, as Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, who transforms from a rancid political hack into a ruthless totalitarian before our eyes, gives the most powerful performance; Yoda, the spry green Jedi master voiced by Frank Oz, some of his finest work in this film does. R2-D2 is also in fine form.

Anyway, nobody ever went to a Star Wars picture for the acting. Even as he has pushed back into the Jedi past, Lucas has been inventing the cinematic future, and the sheer beauty, energy and visual coherence of Revenge of the Sith is nothing short of breathtaking.