Letters From A Critic

Rating: 5/10 (28 May 2007)

Dear Gore Verbinski, Ahoy matey, your movie is about pirates and pirates could be considered thieves, and your pirates stole 2 and half hours of my life, which I will never get back. I can't go in a ship and fall over the waterfall into Davy Jones locker to find it. I can't turn myself upside down to find it as well. But what I can do it let you know that you sir have ruined the Pirates franchise for life.
So our story begins in Singapore when Elizabeth Swan (Keira Knightley) and Captain Barbossa (Geoffery Rush) are looking for a ship an allies because Lord Beckett and Davy Jones have teamed up to conquer the pirate world I guess. From this point on it is a half an hour of bullshit that doesn't even pertain to the movie. It was a neat fight scene, but how many neat fight scenes can one put in a movie, much less, a trio of movies with neat fight scenes already.
So what do you do? You try to give a blockbuster movie an elaborate storyline. Let's be honest here sir, blockbusters don't have elaborate story lines. They have lots of action, great effects, impressive sets, and a story line that isn't hard to follow. The only people who will get the movie are the faithful followers of the pirates. The ones that come to the theater dressed like them. I haven't seen that yet but I am sure it has happened.
The movie was 2 ½ hours. Was that really necessary? To add all the extra dialogue that had nothing to do with the movie was point less. Then you have everyone in the movie making shrewd back room deals. It gets to a point you feel like a stockbroker in his first day standing in the pit watching everyone do crazy hand signals.
Here's another question, what the hell happened between William (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth? They don't love each other, and they don't trust each other. They feel their "burdens are theirs to bare." And then all of a sudden, during the final fight, they want to get married and ask Barbossa to marry them. Barbossa? What did he go to Sunday School while gone for Dead Man's Chest? There was no chemistry at all between them. In fact, I didn't get William Turner at all. I think Bloom was phoning in his performance. He sucked! There was a spark between Jack and Elizabeth, and it would have been funny if he popped in during that wedding scene on the ship.
Johnny Depp did an amazing job as usual, and I think you do a very great job of manipulating the camera. There is no question that this was a well-shot movie. It would have been even better shot if we could have done away with the multiple Jack sequences as well. Sure it was funny the first time but it got quite old quite fast. I think we get the point, he's conflicted. He has been conflicted since Pearl. That is one of the things you have to like about him. He is unpredictable and you never know what he is going to do.
The bottom line Gore is that this movie was way too much of the logic and not enough of the fantastic. You only had one scene in the movie that was fun when Calypso turned into the giant woman and exploded. You try to develop a relationship between her and Jones but fail as they have one time together in the movie where she turned him into a normal man before he revamps into squid face. A movie like this needs to be quick, fun, and thrilling. Not boring, trite, and following a storyline like the pirates following the code presented by Keith Richards, nice marketing move there people.
This movie was a little fun, but not as much fun as the first two and unfortunately it looks like there's room for a sequel, and I can tell you will after the paycheck you will receive, make that. I wonder if your actors are up to the task for that as well. You had only four five fight scenes and too much craziness to deal with for a simple summer blockbuster. When I watch Pirates, I want it to be simple, fast, furious, and fun.
Your movie was 2 ½ hours, so I will give you 2 ½ shots of Seagrams.
JAE