Too much of some things, not enough of others

Rating: 7/10 (26 May 2007)

Before I start I have to admit two things; I have a childhood fondness for Pirate movies, I've always liked them, even the bad ones and I have a not so childhood fondness for Johnny Depp, so I was probably going to like this movie no matter what. And I did, but it was by no means flawless.
At the end of the second movie Elizabeth Swann, played by Keira Knightley, sacrificed Jack Sparrow, played by Johnny Depp, to the Kraken in order to save the crew and ship. Will Turner, played by Orlando Bloom, had promised his father he would rescue him from the clutches of Davey Jones, played by Bill Nighy. Tia Dalma had somehow brought Barbossa, played by Geoffrey Rush, back to life and the crew were going in search of Jack.
That's pretty much where the third movie starts, the bid to rescue Jack. The gang recruit Captian Sao Feng, played by Chow Yun-Fat, from Singapore to help them, and also Barbossa is calling him out to convene a meeting with the 9 pirate lords, and sort of court or parliament. Jack Sparrow doesn't appear until about half an hour into the movie, and when he does he's doing things which are rather strange, which amounts to him talking to himself after spending so long alone, which he keeps up throughout, and some of it gets really silly.
Once they've rescued him the rest of the movie is basically the war between Lord Beckett, played by Tom Hollander and the pirates. Beckett has Davey Jones' heart which he is using to control him, making his army more or less unbeatable so the pirate lords meet to work out what to do, and that's the basic plot. There are a few twists and turns I won't go into for fear of spoiling the movie but I don't think the plot is as complicated as has been made out. The main thing about this movie is that everyone is going for their own agenda this time, it's not one cause and everyone else joins in so once you work out who wants what it's not too difficult to follow. There are a few totally unnecessary sub plots such as the aforementioned Jack Sparrow talking to himself, but if you don't try to think about it too much it's not too bad, and let's face it, movies like this are not supposed to be big thinkers, they're movies where you just accept what's going on and go with it.
As before the host of support characters was brilliant, I've always liked how they manage to keep more or less the same crew, and even the same two guards who were distracted in the first movie so Jack could steal a ship were back, I've gotten fond of those two, and their equivalents in the pirate crew, the two who had to dress up as girls in the first one, one of which has a wooden eye.
The action and some of the visual effects were absolutely brilliant, I thought, and there are plenty of laughs in it, although probably less than the first two movies. As always in the scenes with Jack Sparrow everyone pretty much lets him be whatever he is and don't try to out act Johnny Depp. But it's not flawless.
My first gripe is the length. At just shy of 3 hours it is a bit long, especially if the seats in your cinema aren't too cushioned!! For me it dragged at the start, for about the first hour or so, which is where most of the plot was mapped out. Once it got going and everyone knew where they were heading it was fantastic but getting there dragged on a bit.
My second gripe, and the main one, was actually Elizabeth Swann. These movies have always really been about Jack and Will and Elizabeth's romance has been in the background but this movie tries to turn it around. I'm not the biggest fan of either Keira or Orlando and Orlando wasn't bad, but Keira was just in it too much. She somehow ended up the main hero, which I felt should never have happened. I'm not saying that only because I like Johnny Depp more than Keira Knightley or Jack more than Elizabeth, I just thought the character didn't work. The idea was probably to show how she'd grown and now fits in perfectly with the pirates, even leaving Will Turner in her shadow, but instead of Jack Sparrow leading the way and the other two doing what they could to be with him, it seemed like Elizabeth was the leader and everyone else followed her, and I don't think it really worked. All in all it was great fun. Dragged a bit to start and yes the plot was more complicated that it had to be including some downright unnecessary sub plots, but I managed to follow it fairly easily. Too much Elizabeth, not enough of the others. An unexpected ending too, but a good one.
One warning about this though, I'd think twice about taking young children to see it. Although the violence isn't in any way graphic I think it could be upsetting for young children with scenes like mass hangings right at the start and people having swords stuck all the way through them. No blood, or very little but might be too much for children, I'd certainly not take anyone less than 10 or 11 to see it and only then if I knew it wouldn't bother them.