I Fadangoed a ticket to POTC for last night and sent the family off to see John Smoltz win number 200. First, I'd like to say that my review may be colored by the fact that the Austell 22 has put in seats that are made like those on an airplane except no recline feature so I was basically forced to sit for two and a half hours as if strapped in for an emergency landing.
Anyway, how long have I been looking forward to this? Well, since I saw the last installment. And while those who read my review of that know that I felt they may have gotten a bit Kraken happy and perhaps overplayed Jack a bit too much,but overall? Loved it. Could not wait for the next one.
So the release of number three was greeted with me plunking down my $9.75 for a full price ticket which hasn't happened...since Marie Antoinette (but that was WELL worth it). So how was it? I don't know that I have a clear cut answer. It was...strange. Then good. Then weird. Then really good. Then confusing. Then great. Then...not good.
Let's look at what made me love one and two:
- Adventure
- Romance
- Humor
- Excellent Special Effects
- Acting
- Plot line that reflected perfectly but freshened up one of my faavorite Disney rides
Here's what I got in number three:
- Action
- Acting
- Excellent Special Effects with slight overuse of computer animation
Now if you're a man, that probably is a dream combo. If you're a kid that probably more than works for you as well (although there are at least two scenes I've got off the top of my head that scared the ten year old sitting next to me. Beware an opening featuring a mass hanging scene including that of a small child and a scene where a version of Jack whips out his brain and licks it). But if you're a woman or a fan of the original then..you've been played.
I will say that of the three, the cast here feels the most cohesive. This one was filmed back to back with number two and it feels like they're working in the zone and some scenes you can just tell they're having a good time (and may find yourself singing 'rock the boat baby" out loud). Bill Nighy has never given a bad preformance. And Geoffrey Rush has elevated Barbossa so high that his action figure has gone to the top of my Christmas list. Although if anyone was shoulders above the rest it has to be Orlando Bloom who wrestled this movie back from Johnny Depp and made it his bitch. Everyone just kicks the hell out of their character, with the exception of Chow who acts his way through mightly but is wasted all the same with not one spectacular fight. Why cast a huge martial arts star and not let him do his thing? Perhaps it fell to the cutting room floor. If so, shame on you Gore! Shame!
Where we had adventure in the first two, we now have action. Where we had romance we now have...no romance aside from a five minute nod at the end which ends badly in my opinion. Where we had a plot that was vintage Disney we now have....way too much going on. They should have handed out cheatsheets about who was doing what and why. I can't decide if they were attempting to cram it all into one movie or if the possibility of a fourth installment was so viable that they had to lay groundwork for it as well. It felt like they were running as fast as they could trying to tie up loose ends while unknotting those that they'd already tied. For instance, the rather gratuitous way they treat the death of the Kraken. It's like they had a checklist; Explain where Kraken is, done.
While most of the effects are stunning and strike a note between awe inspiring and gigglicious in a Disney way, computer animation rears its ugly head in a few of the last battle scenes and makes it feel cartoonish. And there are scenes where Gore got all "Being John Malkovich" and started making me think there was soemthing weird in my $6 fountain Diet Coke. That's the thing about CGI in the modern age, just because you CAN doen't mean you SHOULD. There are stunning visuals aplenty and the few that annoyed me were forgiven when one weighs them against the shots of the starry night sky and sea melting into one another and the Shipwreck Cove views. Indeed, I see Disney dismanteling Tom Sawyers Island for a Shipwreck Cove attraction any minute. A move I endorse and shall anticipate.
In fact, my complaint seems to be with the writers. First, we lost the beauty of what makes a pirate movie. Someone needs to review their Errol Flynn collection (and I have my eye on you Gore). Where are our grand dueling scenes? Blowing things up is not swashbuckling. It's Die Hard with a Cutlass. They're aren't any of those amazing sequences like in the previous movie (the water wheel or the escape from the cannibals for example) that made it feel piratey. And there are explosions a plenty. So many that I felt like searching the credits for a Renny Harlan as technical advisor nod. But no matter how big and bad the blow-up, it's no substitute for clanging swords.
And the end. Again, with Johnny Depp teasing the masses with his not a denial about making a fourth movie and the estimated one billion dollar box office expected, plus the merchandise tie-ins, let's face it, they'd all be idiots to stop here. I know actors don't want to play the same character a milllion times but I doubt if any of these people will ever see a potential deal with so many zeros attached again in their lifetime. I'd be willing to strap on an eyepatch every day for the rest of my life for $35 million dollars and three percent of merchandise, the sort of deal that might easily net you around sixty million dollars for one film even if the thing falls flat on it's face. You won't make that bank with anyone else ever. That's the money that gives you the freedom to start that independant production company and make gritty docudramas about political injustice and win your Oscar. So anyone who isn't willing to get their sea legs back for another six months is a fool.
But still that's no justification for not giving us the payoff. And by us I mean the women. Let's be honest, this mega trilogy was female driven. We fell in love with Jack Sparrow, we longed to be Elizabeth, we took the kids to see it four times, we agreed to buy the costumes, DVDs, Nintendo games and action figures at Target. We gave the pirate birthday parties, bought the beachtowels, attached the POTC boo-boo strips and listened to the soundtracks during carpool. And yet, we're the ones who were slighted in the end with a romance that..didn't. Or did but then didn't. Or didn't then sort of did then did then really just crapped out. At any rate: You owed us and you cheated us. And that is unforgivable.
So if there isn't a Pirates of The Caribbean: The Fountain Of Youth being penned as I type then I'm coming for you Bruckheimer and I'm bringing all of hell (and by that I mean a gaggle of pissed women with PMS and no Pamprin) with me and not even CSI will be able to find all the body parts. Last review I ended with "see you at World's End". This time I'm ending with BETTER see you off the shoreline of Cuba in about two years.
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