Which movie were you watching?

Rating: 5/10 (1 June 2007)

I can't understand how people are giving this thing 9-10 stars. I liked the first, loved the second, and just didn't enjoy this one at all. It was well made, but not well written nor well acted. The only two good performances were Sparrow and Barbosa. Johnny Depp was still great, and his character was the only bright point in this film. Jeffrey Rush was great too, though his character was lame.
I saw it today, the theater didn't have a ton of people (maybe 20), and I saw three people leave. 1 left after about 30 minutes, then a couple left at about 1/2 way. I considered leaving many times. I was just so bored by it, that I felt my time could have been better spent elsewhere. But I stayed, since I wanted to see more of Jack Sparrow. But I guess Depp's contract limited his days out of days or something, because there were whole 30-40 minute stretches where he wasn't there. And those were BORING stretches!
Why? Because who cares about the characters? Who were we supposed to root for? It got so muddled by the middle, we had no rooting interest. Nothing new was introduced in this movie, either. For better or worse, the second movie added a lot of new ideas and characters. And it expanded on relationships. This one didn't, nor did it remind us of who the characters were. Having not seen any pirates film for 2 years, I forgot why I was supposed to like Elizabeth Swan other than she was hot. Because he character in this third movie sure wasn't sympathetic.
I should have known this movie was in trouble from the opening scene. A thinly veiled indictment of the patriot act, but of course exaggerated and historically inaccurate to the time. Oh, and hanging a 10 year old kid during this soapboxing? Cheap. No matter what your political views, what was that doing in this movie?
Then a lot of boring stuff happens, a lot of double crossing and false alliances a la Survivor and just as contrived, by the end, you are supposed to be rooting for all the pirates for some reason. Yep, ALL the pirates (except Davy Jones).
Pirates, in case people don't know, were blood thirsty thieves who killed and raped, and who actively chose their profession (unless they were shanghaied, but those were not put in fighting positions unless they "converted"). It's okay to find a few who are "comic" or "a different breed" but we were supposed to root for ALL the criminals in this film because a renegade admiral was trying to outlaw piracy. oooo, what a bad man, trying to outlaw piracy, which was a scourge on honest people around the world. he must be stopped...
But even if you buy that the "bad guy British" were bad, this is only the leadership, right? The sailors on those ships being sliced in two and shot in the face? just conscripted (drafted) citizens from england following orders to fight bloodthirsty pirates!
Yes, this movie tries to say that we should root for ALL pirates against the British. The pirates represent FREEDOM all of a sudden (a theme mentioned directly more than once in the film). Give me a break.
And yet, during the whole film, we were not actually presented with any compelling reason to support the pirates. They were thugs, murderers and rapists before this movie starts and in this movie! We meet new pirates from Asia who are thugs and rapists and have women in bondage. But we are supposed to root for them in the end...
The first two movies had a few "good" pirates against a lot of BAD pirates and a couple of renegade military men. Fine, I can dig that.
But this time, no way. They changed the rules, and expected us to buy it.
Give us some real heroes worth rooting for next time. And there will be a next time, because the end of this film ends on a "visual question mark" just like before...
EDIT: funny how in one short year, my point can be proved so simply by real events. now that the world is confronted with the brazen acts of high seas pirates again on a grand scale, nobody could watch this film and not laugh at the premise that ALL pirates are the good guys, simply people wanting freedom, being oppressed by "authority." It was a false premise last summer, it's a false premise today.