Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (12A) HHH Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Lee, Samuel L Jackson, Anthony Daniels and Ian McDiarmid.

THE EXPECTATION for the release of the final chapter of the Star Wars saga was immense.

The big question was: could it deliver? It was always going to be tough for a series that was in decline since Return of the Jedi, and Revenge of the Sith fails in its attempt to recapture the magic and glory of Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back.

That is not to say Revenge of the Sith is a bad film - in fact in parts it is quite good.

It does start atrociously with a confusing and poorly staged battle scene punctuated by Ewan McGregor's clunky plummy accent and dubious beard as Obi-Wan Kenobi.

However the film does slowly but steadily improve. For the uninitiated, Revenge of the Sith charts the descent of the "chosen" Jedi knight Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) from blue-eyed boy to red-eyed monster.

He is bullied - with the sinister threat to his wife Padme and their unborn baby - and seduced to join the dark side of the force by the scheming Emperor Palpatine (the excellent Ian McDiarmid).

What could so easily have taken one film to explain, George Lucas and his own mighty empire has done in three prequels.

One of the grating things about the film is the director's insistence on using the inane droid army yet again which so marred and disappointed in the Phantom Menace.

There are things to admire and Anakin's reincarnation as Darth Vader is well-handled.

Die-hard fans will no doubt be teary-eyed and saddened by this swan-song to one of the most famous film franchises of them all. There will also be enough here to keep most cinema fans happy but not dewy-eyed. Iwan Davies