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Just saw this last night with a buddy who had not seen any of the previous Pirates movies. We were both fairly high, and so my thoughts as I was leaving the theater were mainly of the "good god that movie just WOULD NOT END" vein.
A good night's sleep has helped me view it a little more objectively. A local movie critic has stated that the third installment of this trilogy is crushed under the weight of it's own pretension. "Crushed" is a little harsh to me; a better word might be "suffocated".
So yes, I found the movie disappointing and insufferably long. My poor friend was lost most of the time, he had no reference for the hundreds of jokes that are based on lines and scenes from the previous two movies (any reference to "sea turtles", of which there were many, went completely over his head, likewise jokes about rum being gone). Even Keith Richards' appearance as Jack Sparrow's father was not as exciting as I expected.
Visually, the movie feels like an epic. There are some really great scenes here and there, and overall the whole thing felt much more grand and sweeping than the previous movies (naturally, you may think, it being the last movie). Particularly, the trip to rescue Jack Sparrow from the afterlife has some of my favorite shots of the entire movie.
It's a shame most of the rest of the movie feels old hat. Characters feel stale, dialouge feels based far too heavily on the previous movies, and the new characters just aren't appealing enough for me to give a shit about them. I think a lot of folks are going to complain about some of the philosophical elements that seem a little forced, which lead a lot of reviews to call the movie "pretentious".
Which it may well be. Probably is, in fact. There's a scene
****MODERATE SPOILERS AHEAD****
where Jack Sparrow and Captain Barbossa are on the shores of the world of the dead, regarding the corpse of the Kraken (I could never figure out how the thing died. I suppose Jack killed it when it swallowed him), and Barbossa makes a comment about how the world is changing. "Getting smaller", I think he says, and Jack replies "The world hasn't changed. There's just less in it". The scene felt fine for me, a little touching and all, but I keep feeling that the movie wanted me to think that the pirates are fighting against this sense of the world getting smaller and, shit, I dunno, like there's less freedom around? Like the dead kraken is a symbol of the dawning a new age or something, less magical and mysterious or whatever, but then you realize that this age is being ushered in by an undead tentacle-faced sea monster (that keeps his still beating heart in a wooden chest) and his crew, aboard his submarine/battleship that is nigh-indestructible, all the while bitching about how he was in love with the human incarnation of a sea goddess.
Another spoiler complaint: the fucking parrot and the monkey. Not funny. Did not like them.
****END SPOILERS****
So yeah. The movie felt rushed, and the quality suffers for it. It has it's moments (Depp is entertaining as always, and Geoffery Rush does well as a mad Capt. Barbossa), but all in all I was disappointed. Also the thing is almost three hours long, which nearly killed me. |
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