Keeping the blogosphere posted on the goings on of the world of submarines since late 2004... and mocking and belittling general foolishness wherever it may be found. Idaho's first and foremost submarine blog. (If you don't like something on this blog, please E-mail me; don't call me at home.)

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Movie Review: Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End

We finished up our May Movie Spectacular Triple Crown tonight by seeing the 8 PM showing of the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie. The theater was about 80% full for the first showing, but I heard from someone in the lobby afterwards that the 8:05 PM showing was only about 1/3 full. (Our local theater had five (!) showings starting between 8 and 8:30, and another five starting between 11:30 PM and midnight.)

If you're thinking of seeing PotC3, one thing is sure -- don't even think about going unless you saw the 2nd one. The story picks right up where that one left off, and they don't even try filling in the backstory for those who didn't see "Dead Man's Chest". I don't want to give away too much, but parts of the movie I enjoyed were the "ultimate trim party" and really good CGI. I also laughed at the monkey a few times. Keith Richards wasn't as good as I had hoped, but he was still a highlight.

I can't really say it was a disappointment, because I honestly didn't expect too much out of it. The Y-chromosome-lacking members of my household are really big Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom fans (one for each) so they seemed to like it. I normally like longer movies that use the time to develop the characters (or blow extra stuff up) but the three Pirates movies have always made me think, "This thing is still going on? Why?"

I don't mind suspending disbelief, but only if it serves a purpose. The script of this movie had 17th or 18th century people using sail travelling between the Caribbean and Singapore in essentially no time flat. I could see them doing it if there was a purpose, but in this case it only seemed to be so they could have Chow Yun-Fat as a pirate, and since he's Asian, they had to have him live in Asia. If you're featuring Davy Jones' Locker as an actual place, why not say Asian pirates set up a base in the Caribbean? It was distracting to all the people in the audience who have actually sailed across the Pacific a few times.

When we were driving home, my youngest son said, "Well, the three "3" movies in May were sure a disappointment. If The Simpsons Movie and Transformers end up sucking, I'm going to give up on summer 'blockbusters' forever." (Re: the "Three 3s", we both ended up agreeing that Spiderman 3 was the best of a mediocre lot, and Shrek 3 was the worst.) I've been through enough bad "summer smash movies" (read "Godzilla") to know what he was talking about, but this movie still had enough going for it for me to keep some faith in Hollywood. Overall, I give it three unnecessary plot twists out of five.

4 Comments:

Blogger Cameron said...

My brother in law saw it last night at loved it. Said it was better than the second, not quite as good as the first. I have my doubts though.

BTW, I hated Spiderman 3. Just stupid. I didn't like the first two Shrek's so haven't been in a rush to see the latest.

Transformers better not suck.

5/25/2007 4:12 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I saw it last night and our theatre (north of Denver) was packed as were the 6 others.

All in all, I gave it a B+

I got kind of confused by all of the pirate betrayals, but I guess that what they do...

(spoiler alert for those that have not yet seen it)

I did like the riff on other movies (e.g spagetti westerns at the Parley)

For symmetry, I would have had Tia Dalma (Calypso) gather up Jones as he was falling into the maelstrom and together in the clouds, they would fade away as they embraced.

In conjunction with the above, I would have had Elizabeth become the next Calypso as Will became the master of the Flying Dutchman.

I hope you all stayed till the end of the credits for the final scene.

5/25/2007 6:32 PM

 
Blogger Bubblehead said...

No, we didn't stay, but I read in the paper today that there was a scene at the end. I think my girls are planning on going back tomorrow morning to see it again so they can see that last bit.

5/25/2007 7:14 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If you want to see an intense movie that grabs your attention and won't let it go, see 28 Weeks Later. It's got some pretty graphic scenes, as do zombie movies these days, but a good plot and good actors. If you like that type of movie, it's one of the best. Fast zombies in this one, and boy are they angry (because they're infected with the "rage virus").

5/28/2007 10:30 AM

 

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