Pirates...A Letdown...

Rating: 5/10 (22 January 2008)

I'm an avid Pirates and Depp fan, such great fun it was watching the first movie in the theater! An imaginative, well written, well done movie...even the second Pirates, although nowhere near the first managed to build a satisfying cliffhanger at the end, enough anyway to want me see the third.
AWE, (or LSD as it should be called.) is like 3 movies crammed into one. I saw it opening night, but had to wait for it on DVD so I could watch it and try to understand everything that was going on. Pointless plots and characters abound! And the plots in the story arc that may be remotely interesting are pretty much killed off or flushed away. Let me start with the issues I had with this film:
1.) Shouldn't it have seemed to be harder to reach the world of the dead? A little too easy to get there if you ask me. All they really did was sail, and then fall over a waterfall. Shouldn't it have been some sort of trials, or adventure just to get there? (dare I say Clash of the Titans?? But that's just me.) Absolutely pointless "eye candy" of a scene to show of "neat" fighting skills with Sao Feng. By the time that scene was over, I had forgotten if there was a point to it. What a waste!
2.) The reason I call it LSD. Which is what it seems you'd have to be on to understand any scene from the introduction of Jack Sparrow in this movie to the reappearance in the "world of the living". Hey, i'm all about mental insanity and hallucination caused by months of isolation or whatever causes people to go mad. What was up with the crabs from the rocks? WTF? How and why did that happen and what was the point, that all of a sudden here are all these "rock crabs" carrying the ship to water. Hey whatever, but how about an explanation. Could we make insanity a little more interesting than multiple Jacks? Wouldn't one also be shocked to see all these people who showed up to rescue Jack, once he realized it was no hallucination, Especially Barbossa who you supposedly killed off long ago.
3.) Davey Jones....wonderfully acted and portrayed (no problems here) treated like a punk in this movie...too complacent and not very true to the character. Jack Sparrow (played splendidly as usual by Depp). You're almost embarrassed for him by the endless "trading" and lame lines he's to repeat. It's like watching football player signings for the season....only like, 6 seasons worth in 2 hours.
4.) Everybody backstabbing everyone else....over and over and over again. My god! And it seems as if it's a "Spur of the moment explanation." It's almost as silly as the new plots. I was also unimpressed by the usually great Hans Zimmer's score.
5.) The plot(s) that were completely discarded that were actually interesting. Jones's plight could've been so much more interesting than it was. Although obviously a horrible and hardened creature, in "Dead Man's Chest" you could almost see the human being who was agonizing underneath, abut a long lost love, and the tragic story behind it, and the possibility of redemption. Instead we get a ridiculous plot about a silly sea goddess (Calypso) being the long lost love, about 5 minutes of dialog exchanged between her and Jones. (Some schlocky crap like "you broke my heart" "you wouldn't have loved me any other way." Huh? no resolution....and then his poorly done and anti-climatic demise.
Calypso...talk about throwing in something silly when you realized the other 27 plots you had going you have no end for. I thought "well this will probably be pretty interesting. Instead and laughably so she grows like the 50 foot woman, belts out something unintelligible and then turns into hundreds of crabs that fall into the sea, and cause a giant whirlpool for no other apparent reason than to make sure those CGI people were cranking out what you pay them for.
The Marriage during battle.....(slaps forehead). I can't say Will is my favorite character but what a downer of an ending for him! Servitude for however long...see your love and child once every 10 years...wow...I need a shot of Prozac after that.
Keira is back! And as anorexic and annoying as ever. Continuing on last movie's plot twist, she's as equally traitorous and out of character in this one. she was fine playing the eye candy, and a light candid role, but anything heavier than that is out of her league in this story, she brings a sort of "caught in headlights" persona whenever some emotional scene arises. I didn't like her in the last half of DMC, and she's equally unlikable an unbelievable here.
As much of a sleaze as we may think he is, the death of Norrington is lame!!! He had potential. the British navy thing, ridiculous, the father floating by in boat, silly, and purely plot advancement as he conveniently discloses some off screen plot advancement.
OK if you're still with me, ii'll tell you something I did like about the movie...The return of Jack Sparrow to his scheming ways at the end! The stealing of the charts, and the little boat....priceless...and perfectly in the atmosphere of the first movie! I had to laugh!
This whole point being, not a BAD film if you don't require any sort of coherent script, or you're looking to complete your DVD trilogy the FX are nice, and Rush, Depp, Nighy, Davenport, and Skarsgard are superb, everyone else makes you itch in your seat like a bad rash. ***** out of **********