Plenty of action, comedy, and romance but overall a pointless movie...

Rating: 4/10 (3 September 2007)

1st watched 9/2/2007, 4 out of 10(Dir-Gore Verbinski): Plenty of action, comedy, and romance but overall a pointless movie-going experience once again from Gore Verbinski and the gang trying to turn a Walt Disney amusement park ride into a third movie for all the kiddies and adults to dish out their money on. There is a little more of the comedy aspect in this one than in the second turning the Johnny Depp character, Jack sparrow, almost into a silent comedian-type with all the shtick that he goes thru. The movie makers teased us with the upcoming Keith Richards cameo as Sparrow's father and the romance of Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley's characters blossoming into a marriage but these were very minor parts of the overblown and overlong 3 hour + movie that this one turned out to be. This adventure started in Singapore as pirates around the world(representing free men) are trying to unite against the evil British-like empire(representing the oppressive slave-based upperclass). Jack Sparrow is in Davy Jones's Locker going mad as he commands a crew of his own look-a-like's which leads to some funny scenes. Bloom & Knightley and others are trying to find him and free him from this other-worldly grave for one reason or another. They are successful, of course, and the battle begins. kind of. There are so many other elements to this movie too numerous to mention that just confuse the heck out of the thing to the point where you realize that all the dialogue is just going to lead into an action-filled climax, so as the viewer you kind of give up on the particulars and wait for this. This, in my opinion, is the fault of the director(if he can't make us understand the plot why include it at all??). Pieces of these specifics include a witch turning into A giant force of nature, the return of the Davy Jones ship and it's crew siding with the Brits, and a guy-girl romance with the hint of jealousy over Jack Sparrow, of course. All of this is thrown together into a money-wasting overblown swashbuckling adventure leaving the viewer looking at this watch wondering when it's all going to end. Oh Hollywood, when are you going to believe that the American audience is smart and has a heart instead of peddling us this junk as entertainment?? -- I guess never because we keep shelling out the dough so that another one can come out with the same senseless stuff as the one before(don't be surprised if there is a number four in this series and more...).