Lucas delivers an uneven finale with ‘Sith’

“If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy.”

“I am the Senate.”

“He has control of the Senate and the courts; he’s too dangerous.”

Those quotes may sound remarkably similar to recent utterances by President Bush, Tom (“I am the government”) DeLay and nervous Democrats, but they pop directly out of the mouths of central characters in the uneven final installment of George Lucas’ 28-year-old “Star Wars” series.

Quick facts Starring: Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman, Ian McDiarmid, Samuel L. Jackson Director: George Lucas Run time: 2 hours, 26 minutes MPAA rating: PG-13

Is Lucas having a bit of fun with contemporary politics here? With its many references to arrogance and lust for power leading to the dark side, is “Revenge of the Sith” intended as an allegory for our times? “Only a Sith deals in absolutes,” says one of the wiser characters, who is clearly not in favor of endorsing a good-vs.-evil agenda.

Nevertheless, that’s mostly what Lucas has to offer in his action sequences, in which various evildoers cross lightsabers with virtuous Jedi knights. The duels almost always happen in a spectacular setting, with spaceships whizzing past the fighters or lakes of lava threatening to upstage their battles. The visual effects are especially impressive in the opening scenes.

There’s a fairly complicated plot, beginning with a tense battle in which Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) declares “This is where the fun begins” as he joins Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor). But we all know how the story turns out because we’ve seen the episode that comes next chronologically: the original 1977 “Star Wars,” otherwise known as “Episode IV: A New Hope.”

The suspense in “Sith” (or “Part III”) revolves around how Anakin will be lured to the dark side and become Darth Vader. Mostly it involves a bit of blackmail involving Anakin’s wife, Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman), who will give birth to the twins, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, before “Sith” is over.

Aside from the political teases, “Sith” is pretty much what you’d expect from this increasingly tired series. Perhaps it was inevitable that once Han Solo disappeared, so would the fun of “Star Wars.” Still, there were reasons to expect something special from this finale, and the film does generate a narrative momentum that’s been missing from the series lately.

The last two episodes were weak partly because they seemed like prologues to the main event: Anakin’s transformation and his split with his wife and Obi-Wan. Now that the climax has arrived, however, everything seems too predetermined.

Christensen glowers a lot, just as he did in the previous installment, “Attack of the Clones,” and his love scenes with Portman are even more embarrassingly banal than they were last time around. Lucas’ dialogue is more to blame than the actors, who are repeatedly sabotaged by unspeakable lines.

Ian McDiarmid, as the sinister Palpatine, manages to create a nearly three-dimensional character in just a few scenes, and so does McGregor, who emphasizes Obi-Wan’s growing spirituality. MacGregor is so good, in fact, that he almost makes you wish for an in-between installment, in which he’ll gradually morph into the original Obi-Wan: the late Alec Guinness. Indeed, he’s halfway there.

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