conflicting Concepts of Evil

...Time and again Pollack has made films about people who fail to come together despite a mutual attraction...

...The perky droid R2-D2 displays more versatility than ever, comically besting a pair of bigger droids in close combat...

...As Republic and Separatist forces collide, Anakin and his former mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) steer their ships through a firestorm that appears to employ hundreds of moving parts...

...The continuity from shot to shot is excellent...

...Danny (Jet Li) is adopted at a young age by the thug Bart (Bob Hoskins) and trained to fight his foes like an attack dog...

...Sidney Pollack, who made Three Days of the Condor (1975), Absence of Malice (1981) and Out of Africa (1985), offers another large-scale drama with a touch of romance...

...At year's end, Revenge of the Sith may be the only tragedy among 2005 's top 10 moneymakers...

...Following a violent mishap that separates them, Danny falls in with Sam (Morgan Freeman), a kindly piano tuner who shelters him and introduces him to his 18-year-old daughter Victoria (Kerry Condon...

...After dreaming of her perishing in childbirth, he becomes terrified of losing her...

...Released as Danny the Dog in France, Unleashed is a good example of a wildly contrived work shot almost as poorly as Crash that somehow manages to be thoroughly entertaining...

...The film is a gallery of prejudices in action...

...Critics who eagerly applauded murkier vehicles like Blade Runner (1982) and The Matrix (1999) have been reluctant to embrace a movie marred by some tinny dialogue and somnambulant performances, plus a rather convoluted storyline...

...Halfway through Revenge of the Sith, Anakin realizes what audiences have known since the first episode...

...Though Ryan does nothing to hide his hatred for blacks, Haggis works hard to justify his attitudes and redeem him...

...She reports the matter to the authorities, but Tobin Keller (Penn), the chief investigator, finds it hard to trust her word after learning about her violent past as an activist...

...Still, the more I reflect, the more I am convinced that the style and content of Crash are functions of the very cowardice the Jedi masters constantly beg Anakin Skywalker to reject...

...Asking no questions, Sam and Victoria civilize Danny, teaching him the joys of family friendships, ice cream and proper table etiquette...

...And though some performances are wooden, the characters remain compelling...

...Whenever she responds evasively to one of his questions, he suspects her of deliberately misleading him...

...In Crash Paul Haggis, using a large canvas that evokes the recent work of Robert Altman and John Sayles, explores the lives of several Los Angeles denizens whose paths cross over a two-day period...

...Later Lucas brilliantly frames face-offs on the intricately designed urban landscapes of Coruscant, seat of the Senate...

...The special effects in Revenge of the Sith are a generation ahead of any earlier film...

...No sparks fly during their tediously elliptical conversations...

...As this continues, it becomes hard for the audience to invest in either of them...

...Nevertheless, it is unconscionable to suggest that, whatever other virtues they may manifest, their moral shortcomings accurately reflect the way of the world...

...George Lucas' Revenge of the Sith strikes me as not only more entertaining, but also more politically astute and dramatically compelling than the serious drama The Interpreter or the critical favorites Crash and Unleashed...

...Moreover, since the spy plot revolves around preventing the assassination of a ruthless killer, our heroes' success is little cause for excitement...

...One such figure...

...an audience needs a reason to care about the stars...

...Pollack weaves in several action sequences-all derivative, mostly of Alfred Hitchcock...

...When he stands before the Senate and announces that its members are to relinquish their authority, they respond enthusiastically...

...But whatever its shortcomings, Revenge of the Sith is a bona fide science fiction masterpiece...

...More than in any of the films under review, Unleashed allows its actors time and space to develop relationships-a rare quality in movies marketed as summer blockbusters and a refreshing example of how cut-rate filmmaking can still show some soul...

...Farhad's aggressiveness reinforces current prejudices about Middle Easterners, while Daniel, like Jean's servant, is so saintly and gentle it is hard to credit him as a living person...

...Bart treats Danny as if he were a vicious pet, applying a collar to his neck, locking him in the basement, and shoveling bits of food into his mouth when he behaves...

...As much as I would love to see what more he might accomplish in this universe, I hope he sticks to his word...

...Anakin still grieves the loss of his mother, whom he could not save from dying at the hands of marauding thieves in Attack of the Clones-an event alluded to only by Palpatine in this film...

...Meanwhile, Jean, who seethes with contempt for working class ethnics, realizes at the end of the film that the Latina housekeeper she has been scolding throughout is her closest friend...

...After violating Christine, the next day he discovers her pinned inside her smashed car...

...At the beginning of The Phantom Menace, Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), a legislator from the obscure planet Naboo, convinced the Republic's Senate to elect him temporary chancellor, with special powers in a time of crisis...

...AFTER SUFFERING through Crash, I was almost relieved that Louis Leterrier's Unleashed has nothing to say about the doings of real people...

...The climactic assassination recalls The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), with shades of John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and Alan J. Pakula's The Parallax View (1974...

...In one of the film's many ironies, after Anakin becomes consumed by the dark side of the Force, he nearly kills Padme when she stands in his way...

...And black detective Graham (Don Cheadle) embarks on a passionless affair with a Latina, Rita (Jennifer Esposito), in part to spite his nagging mother...

...Thirteen years later, with war still raging between the Republic and the Separatists, he has gained sufficient power to challenge the authority of the Jedi Council, an elite entity whose superpowerful agents, the Jedi Knights, have kept the cosmic peace for centuries...

...Overthe course of the film, a republic composed of thousands of independent worlds must cede power to a galactic emperor...

...One evening at the office, she happens to eavesdrop on a conversation in Ku between two men planning to assassinate a visiting dignitary...

...Those too disdainful to accept it on its own consistent terms-who refuse to involve themselves in planet Utapau's pacifist policies, or the relative merits of Count Dooku and General Grievous as leaders of the Separatists against the Republic-are missing out on a multifaceted and resonant experience...

...Haggis' technique prevents the audience from feeling his characters' traumas...

...He has been nurturing Anakin's ambition and resentment of the Council, and by the time the chancellor reveals his identity, Anakin is ready to be persuaded that the Jedi are his enemies...

...The digitally animated creatures often upstage their living counterparts, but only when they register as human...

...A scene with a bomb on a bus should take on a new dimension in this era, but it is more protracted and less effective than a similar sequence in Hitchcock's Sabotage (1936...

...An affluent white couple, Jean (Sandra Bullock) and Rick (Brendan Fraser), are assaulted at gunpoint by black carjackers Antony (Chris "Ludacris" Bridges) and Peter (Larenz Tate...

...Elsewhere white police officer Ryan (Matt Dillon) offends his similarly hued partner Hanson (Ryan Phillippe) by stopping a well-to-do African-American couple, Christine (Thandie Newton) and Cameron (Terrence Howard), for spurious reasons and fondling the irate wife under the pretense of frisking her...

...and by the deadly lava rivers of Mustafar...

...Palpatine is the covert leader of the Separatists as well as the Dark Lord of the Sith, a mighty order opposed to the Jedi...

...Her concluding speech, however, speaks more to the poverty of her heart than any valuable revelation, rendering her yet more contemptible...

...We meet Farhad (Shaun Toub), the Iranian convenience store owner who becomes so incensed with his Latino locksmith Daniel (Michael Pena) that he drives menacingly to his house gun in hand...

...As in his best earlier dramas, Pol lack corrals two fine lead actors, Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, and they warily circle round each other, unsure whether to fall in love or run for their lives...

...Revenge of the Sith takes a different tack: As soon as Palpatine seizes control of the Senate, he orders Anakin to eliminate the Separatists, and civil war ends in absolute triumph...

...What I found especially offensive about Crash is its insistence that racists are in fact good at heart but driven toward prejudice by forces beyond their control...

...The first movie to be shot in United Nations headquarters, it ought to hit closer to home than affairs of a long time ago in a galaxy far far away...

...Silvia refuses to reveal her true intentions, and Keller is a wounded figure afraid of opening up...

...Ryan drives this point home forcefully: When Hanson applies successfully to end their partnership, Ryan assures him that he will adopt the same views in due time...

...Lucas conceives of evil as the rigid imposition of order that breeds oppression...

...Danny then springs into action, pummeling Bart's enemies with a quick fury...

...The opening space battle is uncannily vivid...

...Antony rails against whites who see all blacks as thieves and killers, even as he embodies these stereotypes...

...From a flat across the street Keller witnesses an assassin entering Silvia's apartment, evoking Rear Window (1954...

...Because of their reversed order and the fact that the original trilogy to appear was set a generation later, we know that Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen), the swashbuckling youth who matures into surly adulthood, willtransform into Darth Vader, the ruthless nemesis of the initial trio...

...Silvia Broome (Kidman) works at the UN translating Ku, the language of Matobo, a fictional African country...

...If only here he had remembered Hitchcock's basic rules for the romantic spy story: Intrigue means nothing if the central characters remain ciphers...

...One of the series' major themes concerns the dangerous consequences of submitting to anger and fear, qualities he manifests in abundance...

...Unfortunately, the film's inert personal and political crises feel remote...

...After her loss Anakin defied the Jedi code by secretly marrying another senator from Naboo, Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman), who now has become pregnant...

...General Grievous (voiced by Matthew Wood), is a magnificent creation, a sickly being encased in elephantine white armor, nearly as angry and formidable in battle as the future Darth Vader...

...Conventional dramas tend to associate evil with disorder...

...The Interpreter fails because its fine actors inhabit dull roles and its realistic dialogue serves a formulaic plot...

...Its plot concerns an unpopular leader who gains the adoration of a great republic by waging an unnecessary war...

...He conjures happy endings that in most instances ring false, and he pre-emptively forgives his viewers for prejudices he assumes they share...

...As every fan knows, the odd chronology of Lucas' saga had episodes four, five and six-Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983)-forming the first trilogy, with one, two, and Sith making up the second trilogy...

...No doubt some racists do indeed feel victimized by the people they despise...

...Palpatine preys on his obsessive fears by promising that Sith power, as unbridled as the Jedis' is restrained, can preserve his wife...

...Soon enough, we see Hanson, in a moment of panic, killing a defenseless black man reaching into his pocket to pull out a trinket...

...Such is true of Crash and Unleashed, with their chaotically violent visions of urban life, and of The Interpreter, whose villain, an exdeath squad leader, is a posterboy for Third World strife...

...More subtly, we watch the Senate follow a trajectory similar to Anakin's, attracted to the power Palpatine offers them if they elect him emperor...

...Pulling her from the wreckage seconds before a gasoline explosion, he proves himself a hero...

...Yuen Wo Ping's overchoreographed fight sequences are jokey and unimpressive, but Freeman and Li make an endearing pair during the film's quiet midsection...

...We learn that Ryan plays loving nurse to his sickly father, a man fired from his job so a younger African American could be promoted to replace him...

...in the forest world of Kashyyyk, home to the seven-foot Wookiees...

...When Bart finds himself in hot water, he removes the collar...

...More than the directors discussed above, he makes politics personal, but his message about race relations is repugnant...

...Padme then delivers the film's most memorable line: "So this is how liberty dies-with thunderous applause...

...Little of the dialogue here is as resonant, yet if the language is at times awkward, the plot is riveting...

...I would prefer to believe Crash is a well-intentioned movie gone wrong, the work of an amateur auteur not yet capable of transcending the stereotypes he seems to want to condemn...

...Set in a large European city dominated by foreign-accented English speakers, it is filled with shootouts conducted in broad daylight yet never interrupted by the police...

...The civil war that rages from the opening sequence concludes with the onset of a brutal totalitarian dictatorship...

...The movie's technique bespeaks such ineptitude...

...The second series borrows broadly from world history-particularly the rise of imperial Rome and Nazi Germanybut makes a few striking nods to the present day as well...

...Sullenly loyal Danny never questions this inhuman treatment...

...The thesis of Crash, played out in most of its narratives, is that living in a multicultural city turns everyone into a racist...

...Lucas gives the much loved Yoda (voiced by Frank Oz) more to do than in any of the previous installments...

...His sympathy lies with the intolerant...

...viewers become part of the volcanic activity...

...When Bart inevitably reappears to take Danny back, our newly civilized hero must free himself from his master without endangering his newfound family...

...Blurrily shot with a prevalence of closeups, the style, like a funhouse mirror, undermines the characters' credibility, and Mark Isham's score drowns out any tension during the toughest moments...

...in the hangars of Utapau...

...Cameron, a film directortired of playing Uncle Tom, vents his rage to the police officers, but Hanson prevails upon him to go home with his tail between his legs...

...Although Revenge of the Sith has generally received greater acclaim than the two previous episodes of the Star Wars series-The Phantom Menace (1999) and Attack of the Clones (2002)-even many favorable reviews have been restrained...

...By contrast, the big budget adventure The Interpreter finds an important filmmaker off his stride...

...The finale does offer a few twists, but they arrive too late...

...It is fitting that the series should end now, 28 years after it began, with the director coming full circle, still at the height of his powers...

...Lucas has promised Revenge of the Sith will be the last of the Star Wars movies...