Well, Lucas once knew how to make a good movie. He forgot how a few hundred million bucks ago. I went into this movie with very, very low expectations - and boy, I wasn't disappointed. The movie lost me early on, as a consequence of one of Lucas' boneheaded plot devices from the last movie - the whole "A Jedi must not love" thing. We end up with Padme and Anakin living together in the capital, but claiming that they've married in secret. Yeah, right - as if those Jedi mind masters wouldn't have figured that one out.

The whole movie went that way. We had a loosely connected set of battle scenes (and boy oh boy, I won't even try to explain the idiotic conspiracy theory behind Palpatine's war for control of the Republic - it didn't pass the smell test. See, here's the problem. We went to see "Sahara" last night. Think "National Treasure", but in the desert. Improbable plot, RoadRunner style escapes, the whole bit. However, here's what it had going for it:

• The dialogue worked
• The emotional interactions of the characters worked
• The pacing was relentless, so you never had to stop and actually consider the improbability

Which is why "Sith" sucked so much in comparison. The pacing was glacial. The dialogue was actually painful to listen to. The characters made stupid choices again and again. Not to mention the improbability surrounding the central fear point of the movie, that Padme would die in childbirth. Apparently, hyperdrive is one thing in the Star Wars galaxy, but knowledge of C-Sections - nope.

This was perhaps the worst movie I've been to in a long while, and that includes a lot of dogs. I don't know what Ebert and Roeper were smoking when they gave this film a thumbs up, but I rather suspect that the after effects of those drugs were very, very bad. My wife was tempted to just walk out, and there was a point halfway through when I nearly fell asleep.

My recommendation - if you have a choice between "Sith" and "Sahara", go see "Sahara". Heck, if you have a choice between "Sith" and "The Annihilators", watch the latter. Yes, it's really that bad.