Kevin Costner Exonerated (sort of)

Rating: 4/10 (6 December 2011)

When Kevin Costner's ill-fated "Waterworld" beat the previous production cost record for Hollywood films by approximately 75%, no less a critic than Roger Ebert quipped that there must have been some fabulous lunches given the look of the product that made it to the screen. Some twelve years later, Ebert's line applies to Verbinski's "Pirates 3." Both films spend their ducats on big stars (the obviously aggravated Costner and the enthusiastically guy-linered Depp respectively), elaborate floating sets which eventually get blown up real good and enough extras to bring the U.S. unemployment rate down a full point. "Pirates 3" has the extra cost that "Waterworld" did not of the requisite CGI now standard on all films not labeled "indie." The CGI animators create a mass of mock crabs that carry a galleon across a desert, a ship that floats on either side of the ocean's surface and one presumes the tentacled beard of Davy Jones (unless that was all puppetry). Expensive spectacles all to be sure yet Davy Jones' appearance reminds one strongly of the much more convincing aliens in the South African film "District 9" a movie that cost reportedly 1/10th the price. "Pirates 3" likely contained more than 10 times the amount of special effects but this amounts to overuse of the technology resulting in the "Transformers"-type visual confusion and difficulty following the action. The excessive CGI is manifest of an overreaching director's vision, again much like Costner's "Waterworld." To put it bluntly the film is too damned long clocking in at 3 hours if you count the advertisements and previews most theaters now tack on at the beginning of the screening. Long running times do not represent an inherent evil - certainly broad sweeping biopics such as "The Aviator" or films that need to acclimate the audience to a very alien world such as "Avatar" require more than the requisite 88 minutes. The third in a series of films based on one of Disneyworld's least interesting amusement park rides maybe doesn't have the grand narrative arc to hold the audience's attention quite that long. Beyond being too much to follow and too much to sit through there is too little interesting dialog, clever repartee and compelling relationships. Depp and Rush clearly compete for attention, Orlando Bloom as overstayed his welcome and more interaction between Depp and Keith Richards is not forthcoming likely because of Richards' limited acting ability (Mick Jagger he is not). In short, rent "Waterworld" instead - at least you can follow the story.