Rated:
Director: Gore Verbinski
Starring: Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Bill Nighy…
Summary: Captain Barbossa, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann must sail off the edge of the map, navigate treachery and betrayal, and make their final alliances for one last decisive battle….
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Review: Three meows is actually generous. I gave a little extra because Johnny Depp is just so much fun, and because I like the Pirates franchise so much. This film seemed to suffer from “plot-itis”, or a swelling of the plot. There was just too much plot. Even at almost three hours there wasn’t enough time to develop that much story. It tried to do too much, instead of doing less and doing it better.

It was, of course, gorgeous. The costumes were great (if gross… man, pirates need to jump overboard every once in a while, just to rinse off!), the sets were great, the locations were great… But looking pretty isn’t enough. The score was great, if not much different from the score of the first two. That didn’t bother me, since they are all part of the same package. The acting wasn’t the most amazing thing ever, but aside from a scene where Depp plays a bunch of copies of himself interacting, there wasn’t any noticeably poor acting. That scene was a little off for me, for some reason. I realize the whole movie doesn’t take itself seriously, but in that scene I didn’t buy that Depp was taking his characterization seriously, and I really feel that no matter how silly the scene, you need to immerse yourself in it. Bill Nighy did a great job as Davy Jones. Impressive, even. He was able to convey so much through just his eyes (which was all we could see through all of the makeup and computer manipulation).

My problem came in trying to hold all the loose strings set up in the first half of the movie clearly in my mind until they are explained in the second half of the movie. By the end, you know what everything meant and you can follow the plot. But in the beginning, a lot of stuff happens that you just say “what? Huh?? What is going on?” and you just have to wait until it’s revealed later. This is often a great storytelling device. When it falls apart is when you do it with five kajillion different plot elements. By the time they get around to telling you what is going on, you’ve kind of lost track of the details you were shown earlier. This is one of those movies that would make a lot more sense the second time you saw it.

There were also numerous moments when I felt that something unrealistic and internally inconsistent was done for the sake of a dramatic moment. An example is a parting scene between Will and Elizabeth. They’re standing face to face, full of passion, getting closer… her eyes close in anticipation of the kiss… and Will turns around and walks away. She opens her eyes, calls out to him and throws her arms around him and then they have the passionate kiss. See, there is nothing believable about that. This wasn’t a couple who weren’t sure yet if they were going to be romantically involved, which is the typical reason for an almost-but-not-quite kiss scene. And given the situation, Will would absolutely not have walked away without kissing Elizabeth goodbye—he wouldn’t want it, plus it would hurt her. It was out of character and did nothing for the plot except set up the chance for her to throw herself at him dramatically and have a slightly more urgent kiss. I’m all for passionate, urgent kisses, but don’t have the characters behave unnaturally to achieve it.

I had a lot of fun watching the movie, and there were a lot of laugh out loud moments, as well as several absolutely adorable monkey moments (as with the first two movies). There were a few parts that perhaps dragged a bit. By the end of the movie I was glad it was over, which isn’t my preferred way to feel. I would much rather feel “awww! It’s over? I wanted more!” but in this case I was mostly glad I got to get off my butt, which was falling asleep. That said, I will probably see it again. As I said, it’s the kind of movie that would probably be better if you already knew what was going on. It is also the kind of movie that would be fun to see at home with friends, where you could interject a little commentary from time to time. Perhaps with some rum.