It was just okay for me, and as I write this I hope that no Star War fans come after me with a bat for the following review. In the darkest installment of the series, young Anakin Skywalker makes his way to the Dark Side. An inevitable premise meant that there was going to be no surprise to the ending of this movie and there wasn’t. It is sweet that Anakin’s absolute devotion to his wife Padme (Natalie Portman) is the ultimate push he needs to make this conversion but the acting and build-up to this conclusion was just … well, blah. Character after character speaks of Anakin’s “wiseness” – and this is obviously needed to convince the audience that this is in fact true when it is clear from his actions that he is being led around by the nose and not at all wise.

You can’t fault the cinematics – visually the movie is stunning. The acting … well I just can’t help wishing that the lines were a little less cheesy? Something about the script ensured that no one was ever going to win an award for their acting. As an example, for the guy that is able to turn Anakin to the dark side Ian McDiarmid’s Chancellor Palpatine is so over the top and nutty that you wonder how Anakin could over put his faith in him. It must say something when R2D2 is the most entertaining character out of the lot, next to Ewan McGregor’s earnestly acted Obi-Wan Kenobi. Disappointed with the acting and script, I was.

It wasn’t all bad – I liked the focus on the individual battles as opposed to grand scale fighting (though there were enough of these to keep the pace of the film up if you like those chaotic mind-numbing action sequences) and I did like that final scene when Anakin dons the famous Darth Vader outfit but only because it finally completed the transition into the next episode – I could have done without his anguished “Noooooooo” as he finds out that Padme is dead anyway.