POTC3:AWE
I really, really liked the movie up until the last 10 minutes or so. After the final battle was over, it all went to hell. I swear my ears popped from how fast this thing took a dive.
Seriously, who thought that it was a good idea to leave Jack Sparrow, one of the most popular and well-known characters in modern cinema, alone in a freaking dinghy? And to leave Miss "Kicking Ass and Taking Names" Elizabeth standing passively on a beach?
And how creepy is consumating your marriage with an undead guy with NO HEART? Eew! Is it even possible for him to do it without a heart to, er, get the blood moving? Ugh, I don't want to think about Willabeth sex in any context, much less a necrophiliac one. >_<
Wouldn't she technically be a widow, since he's not really alive anymore? Hmm.
And way to NOT explain how the curse works, how the Captain's Beloved must remain true to him for ten years to break the curse, and if she fails he and his entire crew go all fishy and barnacley. Noooo pressure, Lizzie. (The writers clarified this on their website recently, since for some unfathomable reason it wasn't in the film.)
Up until the end of the final battle, it was going so well. Then suddenly the three main characters (well, Jack and Elizabeth, mostly) went wildly OOC and things stopped making sense.
And this truly has nothing to do with my Sparrabeth preferences. If Jack was CotFD and left Elizabeth standing there for ten years, I'd be pissed off, too. It's just a lame way to leave her character. One minute she's acting as the true pirate she is, rallying the troops to battle and fighting tooth and nail, and the next she's like "Oh, okay, I'm not going to try to find a way to break this curse, or find my own destiny as a pirate, or show an ounce of independence. I'll just stand here helplessly because my entire existence hinges on My Mantm." Sexist, boring and out of character. I expected so much better from this movie.
In Dead Man's Chest...
WILL: Guard the chest.
ELIZABETH: (with utterly outraged expression) NO!
In At World's End...
WILL: Here, take care of my heart-in-a-box for a decade.
ELIZABETH: (vapidly) Okay, schmoopie.
WTF?
Elizabeth does not give up without a fight. She never has, from the first moment she invoked parley to Pintel and Ragetti, when she escaped from being locked up in the cabin to row over to the Isla de Muerta and crack undead pirate heads with blunt metal objects, when she held Beckett at gunpoint to get the Letters of Marque, when she posed as a boy to hitch a ride to Tortuga, when she took Jack to task for his cowardice against the Kraken, when she did pretty much ALL the kick-ass pirate stuff in the third film... And now we're supposed to believe that she's suddenly surrendering to fate without so much as a snarky comment?
What the hell did Will do to her? Did he accidentally hit her head on a rock while they were making whoopee on the beach? Does the curse make the CotFD's beloved into a wussy moron?
How fucked up is it that the only character who really gets what they want at the end of the movie is HECTOR BARBOSSA?! I mean, nothing against him, I really like his character. He was rather awesome in this movie! But the three main characters are screwed over, and Norrington is dead. How does that make for a good ending?
And another thing about Whelpabeth that seems really dumb is their complete lack of romance in the first chunk of the film.
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WILL: How long are we going to go without talking?
LIZ: Once we rescue Jack everything will be fine.
WILL: >_<
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WILL: You didn't tell me you left Jack to the Kraken! I feel hurt by that, and how can I trust you?
LIZ: You can't, genius. Pirate.
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LIZ: OMG you've been plotting a triple-cross behind my back?
WILL: Yeah, you're not the only one who can fail to share important feelings. Nyah.
LIZ: Bite me.
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WILL: Let's get married in the middle of this giant battle!
LIZ: Uh...
WILL: This might be our last night on earth, baby!
LIZ: Okay! Let's stand here and slobber on each other! I'm sure all these bloodthirsty enemies who have been trying to kill us will give us a moment and not take the opportunity to hack us to smithereens!
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*headdesk* I was fully prepared for a Will/Elizabeth ending, but I had no idea how completely lame it was going to be.
Other miscellaneous notes and thoughts...
Pintel stealing Gibbs' thunder as storyteller and giver-of-exposition = LOL
Ragetti's wooden eye having major significance = Wow!
Poor Norrington. :( I was really sorry to see him die, especially in such a tragic, heartbreaking manner. Although I give him props for sticking it to Davy at the end--literally. Heh.
So Will is supposed to be the spitting image of his father, hmm? According to both Jack and Ragetti in CotBP, he is, at least. Ragetti I can forgive, taking into account his limited eyesight, but Jack should know better. Even de-barnacled, Bootstrap bears little resemblance to his son. Learn2Continuity! (Not that it would be easy to find an actor who looks like a fifty-year-old Orlando Bloom, but still...)
What's up with the mushrooms growing ON the guys in Sao Feng's bath house? How in the world do you get actual mushroom caps growing on your skin? Yuck, and WTF?
Speaking of yuck, although Mercer totally deserved to die a gruesome death, the particular method that Davy chose was freaking disgusting. >_<
I really found the opening scene to be over the top. Hanging half the population of Port Royal, including many women and at least one child? Nice, cheery note to start off on. 0_o
The multiple-Jacks were funny to begin with, but they should have stopped after they left the Locker. It got a bit too cartoonish.
And the copy of Jack who was so friendly with the goat...WTF? Eeeeew but LOL! More than I needed to know.
Keith Richards was great. No complaints there.
Ragetti/Calypso OTP?
No, actually, Davy/Calypso OTP, and then some. Now there's a love story for you. The jail scene with them was just...wow. Loved it. The pain in her eyes and voice when she was telling Pintel and Ragetti about Davy was really touching.
The final fight between Jack and Davy was awesome. So was the tea party with Will, Beckett and Davy. Bwahaha!
For all the press and promotional posters that Chow Yun Fat got for his role, Sao Feng really wasn't all that significant and died rather quickly. Oh well. No real feelings about him one way or another, I guess.
I understood what they were going for with Beckett's death scene, but they went too far with it. It went on too long and I really had a hard time believing that all those flying splinters completely missed him. (Yeah, yeah, I know, complaining about realistic shrapnel in a movie with an octopus-faced guy who's in love with a goddess who consorts with undead pirates is a bit absurd in itself, but there are limits!)
Another moment that strained credulity was the gag-worthy Will/Elizabeth kiss in the middle of the battle. One moment they're all fighting so intensely that they can barely get a whole sentence out, and the next they're sucking face without paying the least bit of attention to what's going on around them, and the fighting even sort of moves away a bit to give us a better view of the *shudder* happy couple. Oh, puh-LEEZE.
Am I the only one who thinks that Beckett's constant refrain about "It's just good business" was a leftover from some part that got cut out?
According to the official website and other materials, Jack was once a captain in the employ of the EITC, but when Beckett assigned him to deliver slaves from Africa to the colonies, his conscience wouldn't allow it and he let them go instead (possibly, though not confirmed, the people in Tia Dalma's bayou). For his good deed, Jack was branded a pirate and had his ship torched and sunk. He made the deal with Davy Jones to get it back, and the rest, as they say, is history.
This is never explained in either sequel. Indeed, none of the backstory between Jack and Beckett is ever explained.
Since he never said that "good business" line in DMC, I tend to think it came from a discussion between him and Jack, either in a flashback or the present day, about how Jack shouldn't have "stolen" the EITC's "cargo" because transporting slaves was "good business." Something to that effect. As it stands now, the line really doesn't make that much sense.
Lines I wanted to shout at the screen, MST3K-style...
WILL: *getting all kissing and nibbly with Elizabeth's knee*
ELIZABETH: You're doing it all wrong! Good grief, how naive are you? I'm never going to get pregnant THAT way!
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[After-the-credits scene]
WILL: *returns after ten years*
ELIZABETH: Will, so good to see you again! Come meet my son! Doesn't he look just like his daddy Jack?
WILL: Oh crap. *instantaneously grows tentacles and barnacles*
-----
CALYPSO: It's so awful being stuck in just one form for all this time!
DAVY: Yeah, what lousy luck, to get stuck in a body with weird dots on your face and really bad teeth.
CALYPSO: I wouldn't talk, octopus-face.
DAVY: Hey, you want to know what these tentacles can do?
*cue tacky porn music--bow chicka bow bow!*
Okay, shutting up now. I'm sure I'll think of more stuff to add later.
Bottom line, I really enjoyed the first 2 hours and 20 minutes. The last ten minutes sucked ass.
Edited to add a quote from a spot-on review here:
As Depp fades into the periphery, Bloom and Knightley grapple with roles that have never been thoughtfully developed. Bloom’s Will remains a hunky nonentity, while Knightley’s Elizabeth is a tough chick dangerously low on charm. “At World’s End” brings closure to their on-again/off-again courting.
However, after three films, these two young actors still still don't have much chemistry together. One of the series’ biggest liabilities is that she and Depp clearly displayed sexual tension, further highlighting how limp the Will/Elizabeth relationship was by comparison.
QFT, as they say on the WoW forums. (Quoted for truth.)
Edited again to add an idea my dad had that would have made a much better ending...have Elizabeth stab the heart to become CotFD, then use her new powers to save Will, so they could sail off together. That would have been a bittersweet ending, but not nearly as much of a downer as the real one.
Now why the hell is my computer fan making a rather loud, buzzing noise that I can feel vibrating in my keyboard? 0_o Cut it out right now! *whacks the side of her CPU*
EDIT: Okay, it stopped now. Phew.