(no subject)
I saw the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End on the 26th of May and I was very disappointed. It was actually stressful to watch at times. I can only agree with most reviews and disapprove of the final part of the trilogy.
I'm still in shock from the outcome. At moments, the movie was utterly ridiculous and excruciatingly dragged-along.
There were too many action sequences, unnecessarily violent and too long (e.g.: the Singapore and maelstrom battles, the Singapore bath scene, the setting-Calypso-free sequence)
But the biggest problem this movie had was an alarming lack of depth of character! I am appalled! Hardly any meaningful interaction between the characters and very few lines of witty dialog. I always like a movie that manages to communicate with me on an emotional level (much like a good figure skating program). But this one failed to do so. In addition to that, the main pair, William and Elizabeth, had little or no chemistry at all (just like in the first movie).
Not to mention that the depiction of implied (oral) sex in a PG-13 movie was disturbing. It was like Troy all over again: the only chemistry I saw was between Hector and Helen! However, there is a strong connection between Elizabeth and Jack. Dead Man's Chest seemed to start capitalizing on that and building a new plot line that could have been vastly explored. I was really expecting a development of the situation, a long dialog between the two considering the events in DMC. Boy, was I wrong!
Jack obviously cares for Elizabeth and respects her. It is even clear in the 3rd movie (even though there is hardly anything clear in this one!) when he tries to tell her that her father is really dead and when he saves her from The Flying Dutchman after Will is killed. Actually, those are the only two scenes that show some emotion and the two characters are interacting more meaningfully. The only other emotional scenes that I can remember of were Jack's reactions then he sees the dead Kraken (and his line about the world having less in it, which is so true and I absolutely loved btw) and when Will dies and perhaps when Davy Jones listens to the little music box and sheds a tear thinking of his lost love. The rest is just a chaotic mess.
I was particularly unimpressed and left with a bad taste in my mouth by some way overblown and fantasy-like action scenes: Jack and Elizabeth escaping from The Flying Dutchman with an improvised parachute, Jack and Will flying unrealistically through the air several times, bombs exploding all around and debris damaging everything yet there isn't even a scratch on the main characters.
In my opinion, there were too many twists and turns of the events and one could easily loose the plot line especially when you are too visually challenged by the special effects to follow the dialog and at the same time shield your eyes and ears from the continuous explosions and fights on screen.
In terms of individual scenes my opinion is the following:
- the multi-Jacks made for an interesting idea but not exactly my favourite. I found it bizarre and freaky. If the writers wanted to depict Jack loosing his mind or talking to himself they should have come up with something less disturbing such as a voice of his conscience.
- the giant Calypso! I am speechless... *slaps forehead* Really clever and original! And why on
earth did they tie her up? If she is supposed to be a goddess she couldn't have been restrained by a simple rope. It just doesn't make sense. And her disintegrating into crabs was ... icky (much like the brain-licking ... eww)
- the Singapore bath scene: long and at times creepy. Why did they have to plant mushrooms on people? Again...pointless and disturbing.
- the Maelstrom was visually great. It must have took many hours of work in front of the computer but the result was worth it. Unfortunately, there were too many battles going on for one to fully enjoy the scenery.
- Richard's cameo was very good. Could have been longer and have more dialog with Jack. They had started to interact and it looked promising but then they went right back to the senseless action :(
- there were some unbelievably stupid scenes that I felt insulted my intelligence (see the monkey being set on fire while shot out of a cannon only to emerge unscathed a few minutes into the movie and the scene where the crabs use "Morse code" to communicate with each other!!!)
Not to mention the plot. Hard to follow and chaotic. I have read that the editors had cut some of the footage in which characters interacted and had a lot of dialog regarding some of the plot lines. No wonder there are so many confused people since probably vital parts of the plot are missing. It's a real pity. Instead of developing characters and the relationships between them (and I think I am safe to say that they had plenty of material) the directors/producers opted for pointlessly long battle sequences that seize to be entertaining at a certain point.
To me it just seemed overly *crowded*: too many people, too much make up on some of them, too complex scenery (used mostly for been blown up during some random fight sequence), too much action.
It all started with a cute, warm, funny, vibrant, refreshing story about pirates and it ended with slimy, disgusting, overblown, cheesy, frightening unrealistic, messy story about ... how to screw up what had been accomplished in the first movies. Wrong choice for the producers in my opinion. And I think this is shown in the box-office results :(
Well, at least the acting was good. Johnny Depp "owned" the movie yet again but there was far too little screen time for Jack Sparrow :( and most of the scenes he was in were short and shallow. As I see him, Jack Sparrow is a very complex character with a complicated personality. This, taking into account the events from CotBP and DMC, combined with the brilliance of Depp's acting abilities, made for an amazing array of possibilities regarding the development of the character and of the events surrounding him.
I am extremely disappointed the writers did not explore this and were instead drawn into creating battle scenes :(
In the terms of the Jack/Elizabeth/Will relationship, the ending was predictable but they could have done so much more with it. But why bother with insignificant stuff like plot and characters when you can have pointless, stupid and long action scenes that seem to go on forever!
Geoffrey Rush's Barbossa was incredible. Great acting. I'm glad he was given a more elaborated role. Keira Knightly also had a powerful role which she supported very well. Nighy as Davy Jones brought his character to life in an expertly fashion and Orlando was also good.
I wished Norrington (played by Davenport) would have got more screen time. I can't say I'm a fan but I believe there was some potential in terms of his relationship with the other characters (Jack, Will, governor Swann, Elizabeth).
The movie had some entertaining parts, the visual effects were great, the humour was enjoyable but at times it threatened to fall into the world of the ridiculous.
At World's End was worse even than Dead Man's Chest, which I didn't enjoy so much because of the mostery-type pirates (too grotesque for my liking). But at least DMC was a lot more emotionally charged than the latest movie.
They exaggerated to such a degree that it stopped being fun.
They said it was going to be big and I wanted big. Just not big and stupid!!!
In conclusion, my overall impression was that AWE was scandalously emotionally superficial, visually and acoustically assaulting, mentally draining, physically exhausting, annoyingly shallow, pointlessly violent and ridiculously chaotic.