Another poor sequel

Rating: 3/10 (27 June 2007)

Speaking as someone who greatly enjoyed the first "Pirates" film (heretofore referred to as "POC") -- which I saw in the same drive-in where I saw this 3rd installment -- I have to say I find the whole situation pretty sad. It's a reasonably entertaining film in a way, although you'd best be advised to put your brain in neutral to avoid the possibility of headaches and nausea. But where P1 featured fiery dialogue that brought life to the trite events of the film's plot, this film tries to build up a complex story and leaves the characters hanging on a limb.
A big part of the problem, I think, is that while in the original film all 3 of the major characters' motivations dovetail into one enveloping plot, for the 2nd and 3rd films the writers have taken them off in separate directions and never seem to really be able to bring them back together again in a convincing way. Whatever resolutions this (hopefully) final film has to offer feels likewise disconnected and forced. There are characters such as Calliope and Davy Jones who have been made major plot motivators but about whom I personally felt forced into caring about. People seem to disappear and reappear in other places for no reason other than the demands of the film's twisted plot. The skeleton pirates from POC were absolutely classic, but the fish-person HP Lovecraft-reject hammerhead sharks and so forth never had any charm or personality, and this 3rd film doesn't even have the imagination to supplant them with a new or more interesting menace. They don't even look good on screen IMHO -- they look like they just walked off the set of a 1980s episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation". In particular I never cared for Will Turner's dad as a character -- he was better left in the audience's imagination. We do see a kind of "Council of Pirates", but for me it just brought back painful memories of the silly made-up villains of "Dick Tracy".
All in all I would argue that the writers totally lost sight of the things that made the original film so much fun. They made the classic mistake -- just like Lucas in the mostly awful "Star Wars" sequels -- of turning something that's essentially a pulp-styled adventure film and trying to turn it into a "LOTR" style epic. They completely the missed the appeal of Geoff Rush's Captain Barbosa -- in this film he is neutered of all menace and therefore his words and actions carry no weight, like a shadow of the original character. I would rather he just not be in the film; it's pathetic that the freaking monkey got more screen time in these sequels than Rush.
And of course you have to mention Depp's Jack Sparrow. It's easier to analyze plot weaknesses and so forth than to talk about a performance, but the performance really has lost a lot of the spontaneity and energy that it had originally. Again I think some of this is basically unavoidable -- after all, Depp has already created the character so he's not nearly as challenged or engaged in this film as he was in POC. But part of the problem is, again, that lack of menace. We now see Jack Sparrow as essentially a good guy and no intelligent viewer is going to be confused by the film's meager attempts to keep us guessing at his motives. with all the major characters firmly established as "Pirates" (and even a "Pirate King"), the mystery and sense of danger from POC has gradually been watered down to nothing.
Then there's also the fate of one of my favorite supporting characters, Commodore Norrington (Jack Davenport). In POC, he was given some surprisingly complex character development -- he begins as a stuck-up rival to Will Turner and ends up becoming a friend to the heroes. The 2nd film reversed his character development as if the end of the film hadn't even happened, and this film basically recycled his character transformation from POC, with the same idea but of course now with no surprise or charm. In fact the scene where he rescues Elizabeth feels very rushed, as if the director didn't want to do the scene at all.
What more could I say? I'm just very disappointed that a film that really exemplified to me the highest possibilities of the so-called "popcorn movie" has been turned into a series just as pointless and dull as "Resident Evil". I hope they make no more of these films and I hope that I never have to see it again.