It's been almost a year since I posted here my review of the second installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean saga, and 47 days since Finn5fel did the same with his review of the third one, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. I finally saw that movie yesterday. And it was about time.First of all, I have to say that I kinda liked it. Of course, I was ready for the worst, so that doesn't come as very big a surprise. It often happens. Depending on the hype one movie, book or any other sort of art medium has gotten, it tends to please more or less the viewer. If you've only heard the highest compliments to it, it will surely disappoint you on some measure. If you've only heard bad words, it won't seem that bad a piece to you after all. It's the 'ears of the viewer' syndrome.
At World's End is definitely the worst of the three pirates movies to date. And, just like Fel, I hope it will be the last one (what seems improbable, though, if you've seen its last few scenes). It has an unsteady rhythm, and, in my honest opinion, is forty minutes longer than it should have been. It gives too much room to characters that don't need it, and there's a bunch of extremely long scenes (specially Sparrow's introduction) the movie could have won a lot without.
There was a lot of loose ends that needed to be taken care of, and this conclusion to the saga treats each and every one of them, but with extremely different results. Some of them I liked, some of them I didn't. The story, gratefully, doesn't forget a single one of all the characters from the previous movies, and even introduces a few more. But, on treating all of them, the story is inevitably burdened, and loses the consistency the first two indeed had.
I agree with Fel that in this movie the Pirates trademark crossings and double-crossings are carried to such an absurd degree of exaggeration that, instead of attracting the viewers attention (or, at least, mine) they lose it. But I don't think, as he does, that this movie lacks of audacity. It's true that the incredibility factor is in this movie way more scarce than in the two previous installments. But this third film has its own moments, too. Very few, comparing. Granted. But I think it respects the Pirates saga spirit to a certain degree.
I also laughed, more or less, just like with its predecessors. And I gotta admit: the parrot and the monkey I found kind of amusing. They are a bit expendable, but on some occasions they are the ones that provide that incredibility factor I was talking about.
The movie's end, I liked. On regarding both Will Turner/Elizabeth Swann love story and Jack Sparrow's fate. Some of the characters live, some of them die, and some of them... well, do other things. Sadly, the plot, although enjoyable, is extremely predictable. But, then again, this is a Disney/Bruckheimer film, so that goes without saying.
5 comments:
As I told you yesterday, I'm glad you liked it. At least, you didn't feel you wasted your money.
More than the movie being forty minutes longer than necessary, I think it's about two hours and twenty minutes longer than it should be. If you pick up the elements that actually give closure to Dead Man's Chest (basically, the Davey Jones storyline) and throw everything else away, you would end up with about twenty minutes worth of film. Get those 20 minutes and put them at the end of DMC, and you get a second movie that is awesome and it actually has an end, and you don't need the third movie at all.
There was too much going on, but that is not the problem. The problem is that pretty much none of it was any good, interesting, or compelling. To me, the only subplot worth my time was the Davey Jones story, which was what I was looking forward to seeing told, and it should have been the main story in the movie. I did enjoy those scenes in AWE, but, as I just pointed out, that amounted to around 20 minutes worth of movie. Everything else, I could have done without.
Regarding the picture accompanying the post, yours wasn't showing, so I edited the post and added a picture. Feel free to change it if you don't like it, but I thought it looked better than having a big red X, hahaha.
It's okay about the picture, Fel. I don't know what was the problem with the one I posted, but I'm glad you stepped forward so I didn't even get to see that big red X that doesn't mark any spots. I was going for originality in the pic I uploaded, but I've already grown accustomed to yours. :)
On regarding the movie, I still think At World's End, if not a great movie, is at least a decent Pirates one. It's the worst of the three flicks hands down, but I still kinda liked it.
I agree the movie would have been better had it lasted less, but there was more than enough plot material to guarantee two good hours of movie. Of course, you're right when you say they could have finished Davy (or is it Davey? I'll never know) Jones storyline back in Dead Man's Chest with scarcely twenty minutes more of film, just as they could have do the same with Turner/Swann/Sparrow pretended love triangle. But I don't really think the rest of AWE (at least the most of it) should've been spared. It could have been spared. True. But I liked more or less all of the new storylines, just as I loved seeing again all the old characters.
The Sparrow first scenes are pretty useless in the film, granted. Also, I would never have dealt with the Kraken such ungratefully as they have done in this movie. And there's a lot of small things I didn't like, one way or another. But, in the overall, the movie please me enough. But I still hope they won't do any more Pirates movies. I doubt they would be as good as these three.
Oh, and, BTW, you were right: the posts that were previously drafted conserve their original draft date when they're published. Figures.
As I said, I'm glad you liked it. I truly wish I could say the same :(
Also, I'm glad you didn't get to see the X that didn't mark any spots, hehehe. Unlike the one in Venice...
And the post had the date you posted it on, not the draft's, unless you saw what happened, deleted the draft and wrote a new post.
Fel said: "unless you saw what happened, deleted the draft and wrote a new post"
...which is exactly what I did. I didn't wrote a new one, though. You know how useful copy/pasting can be nowadays...
Dammit! That was probably the reason behind the big red X. I copy/pasted the whole HTML text, and that definitely wasn't a good idea. :(
Hahaha. There you go. I bet that's exactly what happened to the picture. Oh, well: now we both now, for future reference :)
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