I knew it would suck. I seriously underestimated the power of it's suckage. Yep, it's the new Star Wars film.
[spoilers inside - like you could possibly spoil this]
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Let's get the special effects out of the way here since they're the big draw. They're awful - they seem to have got worse in this film than the previous two. Now I don't expect Christopher Lee, who is about 83 thanks to the powers of fresh virgins blood, to start doing somersaults across a space station. No I don't. I do however think it's reasonable that it should look more convincing than the traditional alternative of putting a stuntman in a wig and dangling him from a wire - it would also cost about half as much. Shit, there's probably a divorced stunt man out there who'd do it for free just to impress his jaded little kids who he only gets to see at the weekends - come on Lucas, you know it makes sense!

The fights, and there's a lot of them, range from frantically incoherant to stodgy and lifeless. They are all, without exception, bloody boring.

And is anyone else getting a bit jaded about the way digital effects are presented in films - they move the camera at high speed 360 degrees around every object or zoom from very far away to incredibly close in a split second. It's the equivilent of the old movies shot for 3D where every five minutes some object would fly out at the camera to wow the audience.

Hayden Christensen can't act and will never be able to but many of the actors here are normally pretty decent. But they are up against a powerful force, the darkest force of all - George Lucas' writing.

Some of the dialogue in this film is truly the worst I've ever heard, it's clunkier than the sound of a filing cabinet being bounced down a lift shaft. At one point prior to yet another boring fight, Yoda starts talking trash like a WWF wrestler and it's hilariously unintimidating. Later on Anakin kills a room full of young Jedis - who are called 'Younglings' - wait until you hear Ewan McGregor say 'He killed the younglings' with that fruity accent while he wells up with emotion and try not to laugh.

Well OK, we all know Lucas writes shit dialogue, he's famous for it. The man's a master story teller, right? Erm...not here he isn't. Want to know why Anakin joined the dark side - because he had nightmares about his wife dying. Yep, that's it, that's why he became the biggest bastard in the galaxy. But it gets worse, what does his wife die of? A broken fucking heart! No, I'm not joking - this is what you've been waiting over 20 years to know!

While she's squeezing out a couple of younglings of her own, Anakin gets turned into Darth Vader in a scene that's a total rip of Frankenstein. Nothing wrong with a little homage of course but I can't help wondering if this film would have been better directed by James Whale. The table is tilted up, Anakin has now switched voices from a whiny teenager to that of a sixty year old large black man with asthma. He asks the emperor what has become of his wife, you know, the one he joined the dark side to save? When told of her death he responds the only way an action hero can when his wife dies: "NOOOOOOOOoooooooooo!!"

Jesus, you've got to be fucking kidding me, is that the best they could do?

Anything good about this film? There was a guy who did a cut of Episode I that became known as The Phantom Edit, where he had removed virtually all evidence of Jar Jar Binks - maybe he'd like to do with same with EpIII leaving only the scenes with the emperor. Ian McDiarmid is brilliant as the emperor - he walks that fine line between being campy and being a seriously creepy bastard. Everytime he's not on screen the whole film nosedives.

So there you go, rant over with. There's lots more I could add about what's wrong with this movie but I'm even starting to bore myself.