Pirates of the Carribean 3: Getting More Money From Me
Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest At World's End
This movie is an exciting romp through the possibiliies of a pirate lifestyle. The characters are as believeable as they are hilarious. Our swashbucking heroes accurately portray the hardships and triuphs of life on the heavy seas.
Wait, no.
The latest installement of the "Pirates" series is pretty much a list of nautical legends and mystic influences. From "The Flying Dutchman" to the river Styx there's not much they don't take advantage of. Not that it's bad. In fact, it was quite the opposite, it allowed me to smile smugly in the middle of the film, pretending that I'm the only one who gets the references while 2 minutes later I giggle at the fart jokes. I don't recall any actual fart jokes, but you get my point. As you would expect from a modern movie, the visual effects were quite impressive.
I don't really want to give away spoilers, but I will tell you that despite the second movie's egregious ending, this one is satisfying. Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of room for another sequel, but this one could be the ending to a complete trilogy. Inevitably, if no sequel is made, it will end up like the Star Wars series, where fans, or wise buisinessmen, can write books to contiue the series. With any luck, they won't come in 20 years later and make horrible prequels.
Anyone who wans spoilers can IM me, or call me, and I'll be glad to reveal everything (wink wink).
EDIT: I'm an idiot. I am talking about the third movie, not the second.
Clarification (wherein I tell you what I think about the movie):
As you can probably tell, the first paragraph is a joke. The following paragraphs are not meant to indicate my like or dislike of the movie. This entry showed up an hour after I saw the movie, so I didn't really want to say good or bad while I was still hopped up on caffeine and movie theatre popcorn.
What I really think: I think the fight scenes were very well choreographed. I also think they were too busy. When Jack, Elizabeth, William, Barbossa and Davy Jones are all in the same damn fight scene, it gets a little hard to keep track of what each character is doing. Granted they're all fighting, but you get my point.
As Erin says in her comment below, there's a lot of shit going on all at once. Now, on that point, I don't mind sub-plots, but when the sub-plots get more screen time that the actual plots? That's ridiculous. In my opinion, the entire Calypso plot was totally unnessecary. The hurricane and maelstrom that Calypso turns into was toally unnessecary. The only reason it was there was to show off that they had really cool special effects. Nevermind the fact that even when the ships were supposed to be tilted because they were, you know, getting sucked into a whirlpool, the fight scenes were all on level ground. I'm not quite sure how that worked. Also, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan; also totally unnessecary. Swan doesn't do anything except become Pirate King (a role that could have been filled by Jack or Barbossa). Turner doesn't do anything except die and he can't even do that right. I'm pretty much convinced they were only in the movie because "Orlando Bloom is sooooo hot" and "Kiera Knightly is sooooo hot." I think the film would have been much better if it focused on getting Jack from Davey Jones' Locker, and then skipped right to the siege/defense of Shipwreck Cove.
Another thing that I thought was a little off (ok, a lot off) was the strict adherance to the Pirate Code. Considering that in the first movie, the code was "more guidelines than actual rules" they seemed pretty intent on following the code exactly. Then, to add stupidity on top of contradiction, they elect a Pirate King. What?!?!?! First of all, they ELECT him (her in this case)? And a Pirate King? It seems to me that a bunch of bloodthirsty, savage pirates would rather tell a king to stuff it and stab him rather than listen to him. Oh wait, piracy is illegal, so they are.
The foes in this particular installment are, again, the British Royal navy. Suprise suprise. They managed to pull off getting you to root for the pirates though, by making the leader of the navy (Beckett) pretty much the most despicable person around. A pirate with a naval commision. I mean, come on, the good guys are pirates, you really have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find someone worse.
Assorted things that don't fall into either of the above categories. The Kraken was killed off with literally one line of dialogue. Davey Jones' most powerfull ally and the most powerfull force in the second movie, killed with one line. Ridiculous. In fact, I wish they had replaced the final fight between the Pearl/Dutchman and Beckett's ship with Will Turner summoning the Kraken. Speaking of needless deaths, why exactly did they kill off Elizabeth's father? It seems to me like they killed him just so Swan could be all pouty and get pissed and Beckett. Another unnessecary, time-wasting, useless sub-plot.
In conclusion, I would honestly suggest pirating the movie, or renting it when it comes out on DVD. If you actually want to follow the movie down to a "T", you're going to need to take notes and movie theaters won't pause for you. In summary: impressive stunts, impressive CGI, good acting, but the plot was downright terrible. Like I said at the beginning, the ending is satisfying, partially because its finally over, and partially because it ties up the loose ends left behind in the second movie. In the following movies I'd like to see just Jack and Barbossa, the William/Elizabeth plotline is tired and solved in the scene at the end of the credits.
This movie is an exciting romp through the possibiliies of a pirate lifestyle. The characters are as believeable as they are hilarious. Our swashbucking heroes accurately portray the hardships and triuphs of life on the heavy seas.
Wait, no.
The latest installement of the "Pirates" series is pretty much a list of nautical legends and mystic influences. From "The Flying Dutchman" to the river Styx there's not much they don't take advantage of. Not that it's bad. In fact, it was quite the opposite, it allowed me to smile smugly in the middle of the film, pretending that I'm the only one who gets the references while 2 minutes later I giggle at the fart jokes. I don't recall any actual fart jokes, but you get my point. As you would expect from a modern movie, the visual effects were quite impressive.
I don't really want to give away spoilers, but I will tell you that despite the second movie's egregious ending, this one is satisfying. Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of room for another sequel, but this one could be the ending to a complete trilogy. Inevitably, if no sequel is made, it will end up like the Star Wars series, where fans, or wise buisinessmen, can write books to contiue the series. With any luck, they won't come in 20 years later and make horrible prequels.
Anyone who wans spoilers can IM me, or call me, and I'll be glad to reveal everything (wink wink).
EDIT: I'm an idiot. I am talking about the third movie, not the second.
Clarification (wherein I tell you what I think about the movie):
As you can probably tell, the first paragraph is a joke. The following paragraphs are not meant to indicate my like or dislike of the movie. This entry showed up an hour after I saw the movie, so I didn't really want to say good or bad while I was still hopped up on caffeine and movie theatre popcorn.
What I really think: I think the fight scenes were very well choreographed. I also think they were too busy. When Jack, Elizabeth, William, Barbossa and Davy Jones are all in the same damn fight scene, it gets a little hard to keep track of what each character is doing. Granted they're all fighting, but you get my point.
As Erin says in her comment below, there's a lot of shit going on all at once. Now, on that point, I don't mind sub-plots, but when the sub-plots get more screen time that the actual plots? That's ridiculous. In my opinion, the entire Calypso plot was totally unnessecary. The hurricane and maelstrom that Calypso turns into was toally unnessecary. The only reason it was there was to show off that they had really cool special effects. Nevermind the fact that even when the ships were supposed to be tilted because they were, you know, getting sucked into a whirlpool, the fight scenes were all on level ground. I'm not quite sure how that worked. Also, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan; also totally unnessecary. Swan doesn't do anything except become Pirate King (a role that could have been filled by Jack or Barbossa). Turner doesn't do anything except die and he can't even do that right. I'm pretty much convinced they were only in the movie because "Orlando Bloom is sooooo hot" and "Kiera Knightly is sooooo hot." I think the film would have been much better if it focused on getting Jack from Davey Jones' Locker, and then skipped right to the siege/defense of Shipwreck Cove.
Another thing that I thought was a little off (ok, a lot off) was the strict adherance to the Pirate Code. Considering that in the first movie, the code was "more guidelines than actual rules" they seemed pretty intent on following the code exactly. Then, to add stupidity on top of contradiction, they elect a Pirate King. What?!?!?! First of all, they ELECT him (her in this case)? And a Pirate King? It seems to me that a bunch of bloodthirsty, savage pirates would rather tell a king to stuff it and stab him rather than listen to him. Oh wait, piracy is illegal, so they are.
The foes in this particular installment are, again, the British Royal navy. Suprise suprise. They managed to pull off getting you to root for the pirates though, by making the leader of the navy (Beckett) pretty much the most despicable person around. A pirate with a naval commision. I mean, come on, the good guys are pirates, you really have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find someone worse.
Assorted things that don't fall into either of the above categories. The Kraken was killed off with literally one line of dialogue. Davey Jones' most powerfull ally and the most powerfull force in the second movie, killed with one line. Ridiculous. In fact, I wish they had replaced the final fight between the Pearl/Dutchman and Beckett's ship with Will Turner summoning the Kraken. Speaking of needless deaths, why exactly did they kill off Elizabeth's father? It seems to me like they killed him just so Swan could be all pouty and get pissed and Beckett. Another unnessecary, time-wasting, useless sub-plot.
In conclusion, I would honestly suggest pirating the movie, or renting it when it comes out on DVD. If you actually want to follow the movie down to a "T", you're going to need to take notes and movie theaters won't pause for you. In summary: impressive stunts, impressive CGI, good acting, but the plot was downright terrible. Like I said at the beginning, the ending is satisfying, partially because its finally over, and partially because it ties up the loose ends left behind in the second movie. In the following movies I'd like to see just Jack and Barbossa, the William/Elizabeth plotline is tired and solved in the scene at the end of the credits.