Too Long and Too Complicated

Rating: 4/10 (24 May 2007)

First, I want to preface my "review" by saying that I loved the first movie and I thought that it was a great mix of action/adventure, humor, romance, supernatural, etc. I liked the second one okay - I found it funnier overall than the first one, but I thought that the plot went much too into the supernatural realm. That may sound strange, seeing as the first movie had an undead skeleton crew, but it worked for me. The second movie cared too much about the supernatural, and Davy Jones was too over the top and the subplot with Will and his father was unnecessary. So, now you can see where I fall with the first two movies, so you can understand better my thoughts on the third.
I was very excited about the movie - I went to the midnight showing of the second one, and I saw this one at the 8:00 showing with my sister and friends. I must say that I was very disappointed in it. For one thing, it was badly paced. The action scenes were far and few between and surrounding them were boring, stilted speeches by the many characters. The famous cameo was badly used, which is just sad. The concept of the character is funny enough - not much work is needed to make it a hilarious appearance. Instead, it was played largely straight, which I thought was a mistake.
It was very confusing. I'm not stupid and I was paying attention and yet I was still confused about who was betraying who and who was on whose side. Even at the end, I was still unclear about what had happened in order to get them to that point. "Minor" characters like Norrington were sadly underused. The plot was padded out with the ridiculous imaginings of Jack Sparrow in which he talked to incarnations of himself. This may have been fine if it had appeared even once in the two earlier movies, but it did not and thus seemed out of the blue and merely an attempt to capitalize on Johnny Depp's comedic talents at the expense of about twenty minutes.
The jokes fell flat much of the time, and if I heard one more rum joke, I was ready to throw my popcorn at the screen. Even by the second movie, the rum jokes were starting to get old, by the fifteenth time there was one in the third it became just pathetic.
Finally, the end - MILD SPOILER: The tone of the ending was WAY out of place. The movies are largely light-hearted adventure movies. They're fun. The rather depressing ending was disappointing and, in my opinion, too much of a downer. It may have been brave to end it such, but it is not the type of ending that, I believe, one expects or wants to see. Of course, some may disagree, but I think that it should have ended with the type - and tone - of ending with which the first one finished. Okay, enough with the negatives.
I did enjoy some of the things. The call backs to the first movie - the dog with the key, "poppet", the two arguing ship men, "parlay", and some others - were fun to find. I also thought that the actors did an awesome job. Johnny Depp did his usual great job as Captain Jack Sparrow, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley were fun as Will and Elizabeth, and all the other actors were fine as well. The special effects were as well done as before, and the last fight scene was awesome.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie, but it was not as good as I thought it would be, which may be why I pointed out so much of the negative. It needed better editing and better jokes. The third movie should be better than the second for sure, and action packed. This one had dialogue where there should have been sword fighting. Anyway, it was fun to see once, but unlike the first one - which I saw three times in the theater because I kept making my friends go see it - once was enough for this one.