It's good but where's the fun gone?

Rating: 8/10 (20 June 2009)

The so-called Pirates "trilogy" comes to a conclusion with the third film, filmed back to back with Dead Man's Chest, as Will, Elizabeth and the crew of the Black Pearl are led by a revived Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush returning after his brief cameo at the end of the last film) to Davy Jones's Locker to rescue Jack Sparrow before war is waged on the Pirate Brethren by Lord Cutler Beckett (Hollander) and the East India Trading company.
Keeping up? Good, it's as convoluted as it sounds!!! And that is part of the problem. As before, the filmmakers get so bogged down in the various subplots and double dealing that you feel you should get a free leaflet with the purchase of every disc in order to keep up with the plot! In trying to retroactively shoehorn in the two sequels into a trilogy with the first Pirates movie, the writers, once again, lose that sense of fun that made the first film so great. It's only in the films closing battle that the film gets anywhere close to re-capturing the magic of the first film again.
What does work? The cast obviously led by Johnny Depp, his continued quirky turn as Sparrow makes these films worth watching. The film benefits a lot from the return of Rush's Barbossa whose chemistry with Depp enlivens the film as they try to captain the same vessel, the Black Pearl. Bloom and Knightley continue to do good, yet not outstanding, work as the star crossed lovers whilst the rest of the cast (Crook, Arenberg, McNally, Skarsgard) fill out their roles amicably, plus Keith Richards has a nice cameo as Jack's father, Captain Teague. Production and costume design as well as superb FX from ILM continue to shine throughout the film.
An honourable mention should also be made of the ending of one of the plots. It's all too rare in Hollywood these days that filmmakers make the right decision and go for the natural ending for their characters but I feel they got it completely right with Will & Elizabeth's arc. Without going into spoilers, it was a bittersweet conclusion to their journey and you do get the feeling that they could so easily has waved a magic wand and gone for the easy and obvious happy ending. I glad they didn't.
What doesn't work? Well, as mentioned before, the convoluted script really doesn't help at points. Such twists and turns are made that unfortunately sideline the excellent Bill Nighy as Davy Jones who is hardly used in the film after the build up he received in the previous film. And once again the film is a good 30 minutes too long and, at times, gets very dark. The hanging scene at the opening of the film has to be one of the darkest beginnings for a summer blockbuster yet.
But again I really enjoyed the film despite these faults. I actually think that the two sequels work far better as a two part movie rather than part of a "trilogy" with the first film remaining a stand alone adventure.
As mentioned at the beginning, Disney never planned for any sequels and were quite surprised at the success of the first film. The decision was then made to turn the series into a trilogy by picking up on the little bits of info briefly mentioned in the first film. Perhaps they should've made the films more stand alone instead? As before, an enjoyable picture but let's have a bit more fun for the next voyage 8/10 Speaking of which, with a Pirates 4 planned for release in or about 2012 I have three requests for the producers - 1) Make it a stand alone adventure, keep it fun and don't get bogged down in the self importance of your franchise. I'd be very happy to just see Jack and Barbossa chasing each other after the Fountain of Youth rather than have another nearly three hour overblown adventure. This isn't Lord of the (Yawn!) Rings! 2) Don't feel that there's a need to bring back every character from the previous films. As mentioned above, some character arcs have a natural conclusion. If they don't serve the story don't put them in.
3) Ensure you've got a working script this time rather than beginning production without one! Then you'll know where you're heading.