As a quick addendum to last night’s Star Wars impression, I just want to add another thing that I really didn’t like – midi-fucking-chlorians. I’ll admit that it could have been worse, as when Palpatine started talking about Sith being able to manipulate midichlorians to create life I was half-expecting another “I am your father” moment, but wouldn’t it have been better just to leave them out?

Maybe it was intended as a sly joke to the knowing fans like when you find out in Attack of the Clones that Jar Jar Binks, probably the most hated character in the whole thing, is responsible for the whole Empire, as it was partly Palpatine’s ruminations on midichlorians that started Anakin down his slipperly slope, but I still think that we would still have been better off without it.

Well, I’m back from seeing Revenge of the Sith and…wasn’t that impressed. It was an improvement on the last two prequels to be sure, and the last twenty minutes or so was mostly what I’d been hoping the whole thing would be like, but the quality was patchy and I still wouldn’t mention it in the same sentence as the OT. If I had to give it a review score right now it would be a two, maybe a high three if I was feeling generous (that’s out of five, to clarify).

For anyone reading this who hasn’t seen it I’m going to block out anything that I’d consider to be a spoiler (highlight them to read), but these are my main complaints with it:

• The dialogue in the love scenes. Some of it wouldn’t fly on a crappy soap opera.
• Anakin’s motives for turning to the dark side – he kills Mace Windu, cries “what have I done!?”, and then acts like it’s nothing when Palpatine orders him to go and kill more Jedi. Did I miss something there?
• Padme’s destiny – we all know that she had to die, but what kind of explanation was that she’s medically fine but was losing the will to live? Wouldn’t it have been easier to have Anakin’s spousal abuse mortally wound her?
• The stuff with the wookies was a blatant nudge and wink to the fans and wouldn’t have been missed if it had been excised completely. They starred in a superfluous battle (complete with Chewbacca’s battle cry from Jedi) that could have been cut out with no great loss and then you get Chewie mentioned by Yoda as a little name drop when he leaves. Wouldn’t it have been better to leave Chewie’s introduction until A New Hope?
• I was really into the end, but then they spoil the winning run by giving Vader possible the crappiest line in the whole thing. His over-theatrical “NOOOOOOOO!” coupled with that little Frankenstein walk just made everyone laugh in what should have been an emotionally significant scene.

The saving grace was the last twenty minutes – it was (mostly) what I’d wanted the Star Wars prequels to be like with only the above couple of issues to detract from it. I was also pleased to see that Lucas didn’t feel the need to tone most of it down to make it a straight kids’ movie, especially in the last scenes involving Anakin. The rest of it had its moments (the Jedi purges were great), but ranged in quality from good to painful to watch.

The best thing about it was the Chronicles of Narnia trailer at the beginning.

First of all, I have a confession to make: I’ve never read The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. I’ve read the second book, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, but that’s only because it was free with The Observer a couple of weeks ago. I know a lot of the gags that have made their way into popular culture – 42, the improbability drive, babel fish, etc – and I’ve played a lot of the old text adventure, but the books themselves have somehow slipped through my net. So basically I, like most people in all probability, sat down in the cinema with little in the way of expectations.

The random jokes hit more than they miss and there are some great running gags (Marvin the Paranoid Android is usually very funny). It was the improbability drive which provided the most laughs for me every time it was used, ranging from turning characters into sofas and woolen versions of themselves (mmm…woolen vomit) to turning thermonuclear weapons into bowls of petunias and existentialist sperm whales.

I’d been reading reviews for this and they seem to be divided – either very positive or very negative (most notably negative in the review from Douglas Adams’ biographer). This led me to suspect that it would be much like the buzz for the Lord of the Rings films in that the fanboys would be indignant about the inevitable changes from the source but everyone else would find it to be a very enjoyable introduction, and on the whole it seems like I was right. My friends who had read the books enjoyed it but found some of the changes galling, and I found most of it to be very entertaining and eccentric way to spend a couple of hours.

I’ve honestly lost count of the number of times that an insipid and distinctly average 3D platformer with a crappy anthropomorphic mascot has tried to excuse itself based on the fact that “it’s a kids’ game”. It’s as if they think kids are too vacuous to play anything that could actually be considered decent and so think it’s better to patronise them with some half-baked tat that only the most moronic would enjoy than to make something that is actually a good game (in that you don’t have to be on Valium enjoy it) but is accessible enough for kids to play.

Arguably Nintendo are the masters of doing that but, once in a while, someone else will manage to press all the right buttons and come out with something fun for all ages. Lego Star Wars is one of those games.

It’s a fairly gimmicky concept and it can spoil much of Revenge of the Sith for you, but the developers haven’t made the mistake of taking themselves too seriously – characters fall into pieces of Lego brick when you kill them and some artistic licence has been taken with certain events to good comic effect, and the simple controls combined with wealth of playable characters with their own attacks and special abilities manage to be simple enough for young children but provide enough variety for the Star Wars buffs who won’t be able to resist it to enjoy. The characters fall into basic categories within which they all control similarly (with the notable exception of Yoda I defy you to spot the differences between the Jedi) but each one has its own animations and idiosyncrasies, and the forced (no pun intended) interaction with different types of character keep things interesting.

The game isn’t long by any means but in an effort to keep players coming back it has the obligatory collectables to encourage replays (unlocking characters and parts of larger Star Wars Lego kits, for example). I can’t really see it bringing most people back far beyond the time it takes to go through the main game but when the game is probably a lot better than the main movie tie-in will be and they’ve infused it with this much charm it’s hard not to like. They’ve put it out for a cheaper price than normal (£29.99) and if you’re looking for some simple fun or something to entertain the kids you can’t go wrong with it.