Bad movie all around.

Rating: Null/10 (30 June 2007)

I've figured it out. The fans are so loyal to this franchise now that they can't bear to speak an ill word about it, even though we now have TWO sequels that absolutely suck. Most of the negative reviews have mentioned the serious problems in this one, and they are very obvious, but I will summarize:
*Way too many characters and different ship crews, all with different motives. Impossible to follow or keep track of. Who is with whom? And why?
*No character development. There isn't much dialogue, period, but no one really learns anything or does anything interesting. Elizabeth is the same brilliant swordsman and pirate that she was (inexplicably) in the second one, and Will is still hardly in the movie at all, and has no interesting scenes. Then there are all the new characters like the Singapore pirates and the new English officers, whom we never learn anything about. They have no character whatsoever and I didn't even know their names by the end of the movie.
*Calypso... What a retarded plot device. No one cares about this character or knows anything about her. Half the time you can't even understand what she's saying, because of the accent. Then she turns into crabs and disappears; the whole thing was built up to be important, but actually it does nothing and is pointless.
*Confusing elements. There is no explanation for how Barbossa came back to life. Like a lot of the bizarre stuff in this movie, it is just assumed to be the case, and it is not questioned by anyone or seen as unusual. The new British naval officers in particular, are totally emotionless and don't find it remarkable to be working with undead mutant pirates. It's just like any other day.
*Not fun. Even if it doesn't have distinct humor, a movie like this should have charm and flavor like the first one did. But this is just dark all over with almost no fun moments. Sparrow is the only character who has any real life in him, and they milk that at the expense of everyone else. Even the enjoyable culture clash between Elizabeth, Will, and the pirates is totally gone now, because they are all pirates and act like they always have been, so there is no variety in character types.
I didn't walk out, because I was expecting it to get better at any moment, but it never did. There were maybe 2-3 good scenes in the whole movie. The rest of it was just mindless and overblown, and often very long. I am also surprised that it squeaked by with a PG-13, as it is the most violent so far and has one particularly disgusting and graphic scene. It is so weird how this stuff is considered "ok" for little kids, when the same content in any other live action genre would be out of the question.
Even weirder... Can kids really sit through this?? At my showing, even the adults were restless and clearly not entertained by this long and confusing saga. I would think anyone under 10 would be crying or begging to leave, purely out of boredom.
At the end of it, there is a pretty distinct setup for another sequel. I will definitely be skipping any more to come.