Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End

[Quasar]

So I got to see the film today.

Not bad I'd say overall. Probably as good as two I'd say, which I also liked. It is a bit bloated though, with a sequence or two going on way, way too long. There's also some annoyingly forced comedy that reminded me of some of the R2/3PO in Star Wars (though its not quite as gag inducing).

I was a little surprised that Chow Yun Fat had as little screen time as he does. On the other hand I was really happy to see Geoffrey Rush get as much as he did.

[Aoibhill]

Do they resolve the various plot bits they telegraphed the resolutions to in PotC2?

[Quasar]

Do they resolve the various plot bits they telegraphed the resolutions to in PotC2?

Umm..you'll have to refresh my memory on what they were. I haven't seen it since I saw it in the cinema.

[Craig Oxbrow]

Umm..you'll have to refresh my memory on what they were. I haven't seen it since I saw it in the cinema.

Well, let's see...

The whole "stab the heart - no, don't!" thing gets covered in detail, we find out about the lockets, and the sword Will made for Norrington is used.

Reposting from RPGnet (and my LJ)

Contains spoilers - some blindingly obvious if you've seen the promo art, some actually surprising to me at the time.

After an opening sequence (showcasing the new theme "Hoist The Colours") possibly designed to get parents' groups complaining, we get to the raid on Jabba's Palace and it's all very cinematic and lots of shards of wood fly everywhere. (This will prove to be a recurring motif.)

There's a new magic item with an inexplicably obvious non-special-effect prop to represent it, when I know for a fact that the effects required to do a "wow, special effects!" version existed on a TV budget four years ago.

It leads to some moments that reminded me of, of all things, The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen, with a little Time Bandits mixed in. That I can honestly say I was not expecting in a multi-million-dollar juggernaut, and it was one of several quite pleasant surprises.

Captain Jack Sparrow arrives exactly half an hour in, in a decidedly surreal little short film around the start of the story.

"Multiple Jacks" is this year's "Will rolling downhill trapped in something round made of wood", as well as completing his transition from "normal character played a bit oddly" to "Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius".

With three films' worth of characters all popping up (I think Anamaria and the drunk blacksmith are the only notable character not to reappear) the new guys get short shrift. At no point does Chow-Yun Fat's dive sideways with a flintlock in each hand, for example.

Keith Richards is quite funny.

A scorecard might help you keep track of the number of times people betray the party. After the fourth it just gets annoying, and is my biggest problem with this one as a story.

In places, it looks utterly fantastic, rivalling The Lord Of The Rings for spectacle. Look at the fleets.

Jack uses the word "calumny". Which is awesome.

A lot of the stuff I expected would happen did, but generally not as I'd hoped it might. Some of these surprises are a plus, and some not. What happens to Mercer, Beckett's assassin, is fair enough but rather disappointing, and Norrington is just a bummer. That said, the Governor caught me off-guard and nearly made me cry. The Calypso subplot I wasn't expecting either, but it just left me scratching my head.

It has an ending, unlike Dead Man's Chest. About four, actually, but never mind. As the sequels are essentially one film running 5 1/4 hours, I suppose that was inevitable.

Oh, and stay through the credits. Trust me on this.

So, on average, 'tweren't bad. Unlike Dead Man's Chest, which on average 'twere.

But please, don't do it again. Do something new and straightforward. Like Curse Of The Black Pearl was. Thanks.

Now, if you'll a'scuse me, I'll be off to watch it again and remind meself why I still love it.

[Quasar]

Well, let's see...

Oh, and stay through the credits. Trust me on this.


*grumble*

So, on average, 'tweren't bad. Unlike Dead Man's Chest, which on average 'twere.

I think overall I liked Dead Mans Chest a little more. Some things here just dragged too much for me which makes me think of it slightly less.

[Wakboth]

Saw this a few days ago. It's better than Dead Man's Chest, I think, and has some very nice stuff going on, but the bloat keeps it from surpassing the original.

Still, a very entertaining movie, and definitely one to see in the theater.

[Stephen Tannhauser]

I'm going to chime in for the opposite point of view. The most visually spectacular of the films, but as a story, the most deeply unsatisfying.

The things I found disappointing were:

- Beginning with a sequence of Tyrannical Government Gone Mad that felt like getting hit over the head with a wooden mallet: Beckett and his Law are EEEEEVIL! They HANG CHILDREN! -- oh, and the pirates, those malicious, cowardly, lazy, violent and greedy rapist-thugs whose entire vocation is by definition butchering those who can't fight back and taking their stuff? They're the good guys. Yes, people who literally fulfill the definition of "parasite" are the champions of freedom and independence, and the ordinary people who suffer at their hands will defiantly sing songs glorifying them. At least in Curse of the Black Pearl, we got to see what pirates actually do, and realize that they're Not Nice People.

- By contrast, the most disciplined and effective navy in history, which has finally found the secret stronghold of global piracy, the scourge of the seas, and has the opportunity to wipe it out for good and all, making trade safer for everyone and actually enriching ordinary decent people both at home and in the colonies, will turn around and go away without a fuss solely because one flagship gets destroyed, another's turned coat and a jumped up East India merchant prince is dead. Are there no commodores in this fleet? No captains eager to make a name by destroying pirates?

- The theme of betrayal and counter-betrayal getting taken to ridiculous lengths for its own sake, rather than because it makes any kind of plot sense. (Will trying to strike a bargain with Sao Feng, who just nearly executed him for trying to steal from him, and expecting Feng to accept it without betraying it? How many backstabs have to happen before people stop bothering?)

- The criminal underuse of Jonathan Pryce, Jack Davenport, Stellan Skarsgard and Bill Nighy, dropping their plot and character sequences in favour of F/X brawls and surrealist visuals. I always found Norrington far more interesting as a character than virtually anybody else in the films; the Good Man in the Problematic Organization is one of my absolute favourite story tropes, and I was very disappointed at how perfunctorily this was tied up (dying not at the hand of Jones or of Beckett, but at the hand of a Bootstrap so weakened and maddened that he can't even tell friend from foe). Nor did Jones remain anywhere near as powerful and scary this time round as he should have; the killing of the Kraken, obviously designed to keep from (a) having to do yet another logistical-nightmare ship-killing scene and (b) in the (mistaken, I think) belief that they'd already done everything an audience would be interested in with it, unfortunately neuters much of Jones' fear and threat.

- The entire Calypso/Flying Dutchman backstory mythology. Though the sight of a thirty-foot-tall naked Naomie Harris is oddly hot, did this really make any sense to anyone? I always enjoyed the fact that despite some critics' plaints to the contrary, Pearl and Chest DID in fact make perfect sense if you watched closely enough and paid attention. World's End broke down for me; I never really understood Calypso's or Jones' relationship, how Jones' choice to become captain of the Dutchman related to his choice to "corrupt the Dutchman's purpose", why the Pirate Lords felt they had to "bind" Calypso in the first place, etc. This is a fatal flaw for me; if the backstory leading to your plot doesn't make sense, I have deep trouble caring about the outcome of said plot.

- The way things finally shook down for Elizabeth and Will. I don't object to tragic endings per se, but like happy endings, they have to be fairly earned and have a sense of inevitability and gravitas. This didn't really feel like either. I applaud the willingness to engage with dark concepts like death and what fear of it can do, but the fact that none of the characters mention Heaven or Hell even once, much less any of the Christian imagery that by definition they would have been much more heavily steeped in than anyone today, robs Will's fate of context -- we don't really grasp what he's given up, or why the bargain of "One Day Every Ten Years" should feel like anything other than an arbitrary contrivance.

- And the way things finally shook down for Jack. Some people may like the come-full-circle feeling of that final image; I personally found it profoundly dissatisfying -- as if everything Jack had gone through had only been to get him back to the place he was in the beginning, essentially just the same person he'd always been. I'd rather it had been Jack at the helm of the Dutchman, because -- let's face it -- by now Jack has become much more a character archetype than an actual character, and that would have been a fitting resolution for him.

That was a lot, but I was very disappointed. The more so for all the stuff that was good about the films -- the music, the direction, the action sequences, the visuals... but without a firm foundation of plot and character, none of those walls can hold up the story.