So, has anyone else seen this movie? Just got back from it, and I was thoroughly impressed at it. I liked the other two, but I don't know... There was just something about this movie that made it awesome. ;)

I may have to critique it later, especially after three hours of watching a late showing...

So, for I am Spam, and all that stuff... Now I'm gonna have dreams about pirates...

I loved it!

Saw it last night.  It was bad.  Real bad.
It was only marginally better than Dead Man's Chest (DMC), but probably because it didn't end just as it was getting started.  Curse of the Black Pearl (CBP) is still the best of the three.  At Worlds End (AWE) lacked coherence, and was utterly soulless.  It was barely more than a few action set pieces strung together by tons of inane exposition.  Don't get me wrong, the action set pieces were incredible.  But that's also part of the problem.  In an effort to outdo each previous film in the franchise, the action pieces have gotten bigger, longer, and require more suspension of disbelief than I could muster up even knowing it is a fantasy movie.  Clocking in at just short of three hours, it probably could have been trimmed down to 45 minutes.  It truly felt like it was the actual ending of DMC if they hadn't run that movie so long as to cut it just as it was starting.  If they would have trimmed the fat off DMC, it an AWE would have made one decent movie.  Knightly and Bloom reprise their roles as Elizabeth Swann and Willian Turner.  Both should have left the franchise at the end of CBP.  Bloom continues to show how well he imitates a cardboard box.  He and Knightly also share zero chemistry.  As the central "heroes", you are supposed to care about their relationship and care what happens to them.  I found myself on more than one occasion wishing someone would just kill them and get it over with.  They should never had been contrived into the sequels.

[spoiler]The "big battle scene" that was hyped in the commercials and severely built up in the movie was a total letdown.  They went through all the trouble of setting up a couple of plot threads to bring the nine Pirate Lords together, and they did nothing.  Chow Yun Fat's role which has been hyped up was unfortunately relegated to that of a plot device.  Only in there for part of the movie, his job was to die and make Swann (YES, SWANN!!!) a pirate "lord".  Keith Richards (the model for Johnny Depp's rendition of Jack Sparrow) makes a completely useless appearance.  Played up like there was going to be some sort of interesting dialogue between the two, Keith may have had 2 stilted lines separated by a few notes he played on a guitar. Out of the nine pirate lords, only Sparrow, Barbossa and Swann participated in the huge "multiship" battle.  They only used the Black Pearl, and only had to face off against the Flying Dutchman while the entire pirate fleet and the Company's armada stood back and watched.  In an attempt to make the battle more exciting, there was an entire movie sideplot about releasing the sea goddess Calypso from her mortal shell.  After growing to HUGE size and then collapsing into millions of crabs, her only contribution to the battle was to create a maelstrom for the two ships to face off in.  After entangling themselves together and blasting huge chunks away from each other, the ships appear no worse for wear as they double up on the Company's lead ship and utterly destroy it (ending the "big battle" without either fleet engaging).  With the Company's ship having more cannons on one side than both pirate ships have in their entirety, it was sort of tacked on the way it was destroyed without ever firing a single shot (and it had plenty of time to do so). And then the Pirate Lords cheer and salute each other like they DID something.  :blink:  Oh, and in case you were inclined to sit through the 15 minutes or so of CG credits for the minute of extra "movie", don't bother.  Just shows Swann and Turner ten years later, and Swann introducing him to his ten year old son.  Yes, that's right.  So not only did they try to force feed the Swann/Turner "romantic" sideplot, but the characters don't even truly stay together.  (Seeing each other for one day every ten years is NOT staying together).[/spoiler]

Out of the nine people in our group that saw it, one liked it, two were "meh" and six thought it was utter dren.  Had I seen it at the second run theatre for $1, I think I still would have thought I wasted my money.  Take from that what you will, but my advice is save up the money for Transformers (of which the trailer was shown).

I saw it with a group of 10 people last night (my cousins and their parents and a few family friends) and we all loved it... sure it wasn't as deep as Parts 1 & 2 but these are "popcorn" films and hardly worth nitpicking especially when I heard news that Depp already signed for further sequals (take note of staying after the credits for a hint). Besides I have already seen a 50% love/hate review rate from it either departing from reality or being far more action then anything else.

[spoiler]Sure I was expecting a huge boat battle in the finale of this film when Calypso was released but it would have been a massacre which most likely would have happened if they wanted to kill off all further sequals. Someone leaked a copy of the script for Part 3 on the internet during filming of Part 2 which forced the director and writers to quickly change the ending of the trilogy. A few plot elements were dropped to future projects and others were altered to make for a more supernatural story.[/spoiler]

Heck, I had far more fun killing 3 hours on this film then the 2 times I checked my watch in Spider-Man 3 and I gave that film *** stars in my own private movie database on my PC.

Plus with Die Hard 4 and Transformers yet to come... It's gonna be a wild ride this summer.  :thumbup:

- CrimsonQuill

Crap! I didn't stay through the credits completely..

Saw it, liked it, didn't love it (Seems to be a problem this summer with the third films in trilogies)- didn't dislike it anywear near the amount I disliked Spidey 3.

We were talking about the Pirates movies at work, and how none of them would ever be as good as CBP because Captain Jack was a surprise, in CBP- you were thinking "He's an idiot, he's an idiot- holy cowm he's smarter than anybody!"

Liked:
[spoiler]
The battles. As usual, Bruckhemier knows how to make sure things blow up real good.
The chart was a very cool prop- loved how it led to different places depending on the wheels
Some of the dialogue: "Arrrgh- 'The nine pieces of whatever we had in our pockets at the time. Yeah, that sounds real Piratey".
Captain Jack being one step anhead of Barbosa at the end (though, given that set up and the amount of momey AWE will make, and Depp's stated willingness (as opposed to Bloom and Knightley) to do another one- I will be SHOCKED if there's not a fourth movie.)
[/spoiler]

Disliked:
[spoiler]
The multiple Jack hallucinations got very old, very quickly, and then continued to show up for another couple of hours.
The battle/wedding scene snapped my suspension of disbelief.
Elizabeth's an idiot.  There were at least three ways around giving up will except for once a day every ten years, and you couldnt think of ONE of them?
The length. 15-20 minutes couldve been easily cut, and the result pace increase wouldve made for a better, tighter film.
[/spoiler]

3 stars.

Frankly, I'm getting a little worried. Its almost June, Ive seen more movies in the theater this year than ever before,and I havent seen a movie I'd rate above three starts all year.  Usually by now, there's at least one film that blows me away. I was expecting it to be Spidey, but it wasnt. then I was expecting it to be POTC:AWE, but it wasnt either.

I'm not sure if anything is gonna really 'wow' me this Summer. It was supposed to be this immaculate time for movies, but what I've seen hasn't knocked my socks off or anything. Pirates was pretty darn cool. Spidey broke my heart. I still need to see Shrek..

Bourne Ultimatum in August...YES!

Well, the wife and I saw it yesterday and.....'ehh,' that's about all I can say.  It wasn't terrible, but there were a couple of plot....'dents' if not outright holes, plus the whole:

[spoiler]sea godess thing was just completely ludicrious.  If they really wanted to do that, they needed a WHOLE lot more set up.  Just so many things seemed to be done only halfway, like the whole Will/Elizabeth storyline....we didn't actually see it go anywhere, and then all of a sudden it's resolved without any explination. [/spoiler]

Erghh....this sums it up best: 

http://www.sheldoncomics.com/

It's not quite as bas as that makes it out to be, it was a decent movie, but it really should have been better....just like the second one.

If I may quote myself from the spider-man 3 thread:

Quote...an incredibly entertaining disjointed over the top mess of a spectacle

I liked it, but it had its issues.

Both Pirates and spider-man suffer from the same problems of trying to outdo the previous films in terms of scale, at the expense of coherent rushed story lines that really needed a bit of tuning. The one thing I think that pirates had going for it (for me anyway) was that it didn't require as much emotional involvement as the spider-man movies. Peter Parker is the friend that you want to help, and is the emotional core of the films. Sparrow and crew are the friends you wanna go drinking with and have a good time. As a result I found that I was more forgiving to Pirates shortcomings.

sometimes you have to stop comparing sequels to their 1st or 2nd movie i try to look at them as chapters of the same book some chapters arent as good as others but it still made for a great story ... :thumbup:

Quote from: ubergreendragon on May 28, 2007, 05:17:04 PM
sometimes you have to stop comparing sequels to their 1st or 2nd movie i try to look at them as chapters of the same book some chapters arent as good as others but it still made for a great story ... :thumbup:

An interesting point, actually. Pirates and SM3 are two totally different movies, but I feel tht Pirates came out better because it didn't require as much emotional involvement.

what i absolutely loved about the movie was the whole piracy versus the big corporation angle.   many times throughtout the movie both sparrow and barbosa had commented on how piracy will never die, and pirates keep coming back, and yeah the large corporation is going to fall at the hands of a few pirates.....  did it ever really happen?   no way.
and think about this, At Worlds End and spider-man 3 were some of the first astronimically big blockbuster movies to premiere worldwide instead of in north america (of course in an effort to delay pirating).
it's like Disney is just hand feeding us romance (not loveydovey, but romance as in living vicariously through piracy) while we gladly give them tons of money.
i love this man,  this summer is so good for popcorn movies,  hopefully this fall/winter we'll be able to see some great thought provoking stuff like last fall.

My rating 5 out of 10. Middle of the road here. It just felt like a failure to me, despite all the good stuff happening. It was probably desired by the makers that fans leave talking about the great battles, but not so for me. I left the theater having forgotten all but a vestige of the SFX scenes, instead focusing on specific lines of dialogue.

Perhaps a part of this comes from having my siblings utterly spoil the plot for me... again. Just as they did with Dead Man's Chest.
(I'm going to set a houserule. If you see a movie without me. Just tell me if you enjoyed it. Leave me hanging on details so I enjoy it for myself)

Okay, saw it. 4/5.

I'm gonna go into a LOT of depth here, because the film tried hard to create depth. Bear with me if some of these points have been mentioned before...

I loved the first two. They used crazy, imaginative ideas and made them look very cool and fun to watch. It was also relatively realistic, besides the whole Davey Jones the Squid Man thing and all that, but it was believable. This one just lost the grip on reality and went mad. It was too weird... the bit when
[spoiler]Jack was in the locker just weirded me out. From the sniffing for peanuts to the turning the boat upside down, I was just thinking 'this isn't right, man, this isn't right'. What i really hated about that was that Jack turned out to be schizofrenic - correct me if I'm wrong. If I'm gonna pick nits, I think that ruined him a bit. His insanity was always a bit of an enjoyable mystery up until then, but giving it substance sorta ruined it a bit.

Like mentioned before, I thought it was a bit naff that only two (almost three) ships took part in that last battle, when there were at least fifty laying about. I would have found it a lot more fun if there was more participation from the others - like, a REALLY big sea battle. Even if it did just focus on the Pearl and the Dutchman's own battle and had that going on in the background. Otherwise it left us all there thinking 'bloody freeloaders... why are they cheering?'

I loved Davey Jones. I thought he was an awesome character, possibly the most substantial, behind Jack. I loved his screentime, and I do think he made up for a lot of the negative parts of the film. His plot was brilliant (apart from the short-lived appearance of Calypso in her big ol' form... No comment there) and worth following along. Many of the other plots, I just sorta had to blank out, 'cos they were just so lacking.

The fight scenes were a lot more wild than before. I'm not totally sure if I prefer it this way or of the neat, well-performed, almost artistic style of the last two. What i certainly didn't like was the wedding-in-a-battle. That joke was killed very, very quickly.

Back to calypso. Its not until now, after reading an earlier post here, that I realised it was her who got the maelstrom going. I didn't figure that out that at the time, so I suppose that justifies her existance more than I expected. I thought she turned into a bunch of crabs and... went. No, this is better. That said, I expected the realisation that it was Davey who had her humanised to have a big character development on her and change the course of the film... it didn't. I can live with that, though. I suppose her input wasn't exactly biased. Fair enough. her human character was quite good as well. Goes without saying that I suspected her to be calypso when it was brought up, but thats fine.

To answer the whole 'why did Swann become captain?!?' thing, it was because Chow Yun Fat's character (did anyone pick up his name? He was a very confusing character to follow. Couldn't be bothered with him) believed she was Calypso... am I right? I think its justifiable to hand over lordship to someone you reckon is a sea goddess. That was quite a nice plot device, IMHO.[/spoiler]

So, lots of ups and downs in the film. If I kept an open mind, I would say I really enjoyed it. Fantastic!

I wanted to hate it, I really did. Every instinct as an avid film watcher screamed at me to hate it...but I just couldn't. Jacks far too lovable a scoundrel, and the battle with the Flying Dutchman was just so awesome. :wub:

Saw it, was entertained by it, but wouldn't be sad if that's where the story ends. I found it better than Dead Man's Chest, but not as good as Curse of the Black Pearl, which I still consider one of the finest family action/comedies ever made.

[spoiler]My one criticism is that they should have stripped out the whole sea-goddess plot. It seemed jammed in somehow, with zero set-up or foreshadowing, and slowed things down considerably.[/spoiler]

Still looking forward to Transformers, Rise of the Silver Surfer and The Bourne Ultimatum.

Alright, its about time I gave my fricken' review of this movie...

Welp, here we go!

[spoiler]First things first, they should have made Jack more funnier. Don't get me wrong, he was still funny, but some of the stuff he did felt cliched. Like when he was on the flying dutchman in the cell, and all of the other Jack's start to come and talk to him. Then one Jack comes out of the wall, like what Bootstrap did. Then, later on when Jack escapes, the Jack that comes out the wall says "Everybody stop! I just lost my brain" Rather cliched, if you ask me. Hopefully you know what I'm talking about...

And I do know that the multiple Jack's represented him going insane (to an extent), but it took me awhile to figure it out. It didn't occur to me when it first happened, which is what they should have done in the first place, is for it make sense.

And was it just me, or were the Pirate Lords really fearless INSIDE their little cove? I mean sure, they started to beat the crap out of each other when they were discussing about fighting, but when they set sail, man they looked like wimps... They sent the Black Pearl out... And that was it. They didn't do worth crap... And yes, I too was expecting a glorious battle between the pirates and the Trade Company. But you still gotta admit, that the battle between the Pearl and the Dutchman was a sight to behold. :)

And the whole Calypso thing... You gotta admit, it did help the storyline to an extent... It helped Davey Jones' character, that's for sure. Now we all know how he got so tentecally. ;) And I don't wanna talk about when she got big either... At first I was thinking Disney was going to show her nude, but thank goodness the ropes covered her up... I just probably would have waltzed out of the theatre if they actually would have showed her nude...

And the whole time of the movie was nearly three hours... I know this was mentioned before, but still... Freakin' long movie![/spoiler]

Other then that, I enjoyed it quite a bit, and will probably see it again when it comes to our local dollar theatre. 4/5 stars.

It seems to have become my role to say the same thing over again: I thought the movie, taken as a whole, was wonderful. Obviously there were problems, but it was still an entertaining movie.

And let those whose role it is to overanalyze and dissect movies in an effort to look smart assume their role, as well.

*shrugs*

Quote from: captainspud on May 30, 2007, 08:46:49 PM
It seems to have become my role to say the same thing over again: I thought the movie, taken as a whole, was wonderful. Obviously there were problems, but it was still an entertaining movie.

And let those whose role it is to overanalyze and dissect movies in an effort to look smart assume their role, as well.

*shrugs*

ok, this is weird but lately I have been agreeing with Spud way too much on way too many things.

That's because I tend to be right.

Quote from: captainspud on May 30, 2007, 08:46:49 PM
And let those whose role it is to overanalyze and dissect movies in an effort to look smart assume their role, as well.

Aww, but I was having fun!

I'll be honest with you, writing what i did about the movie put it up a point for me. Talking about it made me realise a few things that didn't occur to me before. Thats certainly why I over analyze - I look smart anyway.

All in all, I enjoyed it. 

[spoiler]I had reservations when I first saw the multiple Jack Sparrows, and never really did warm up to that aspect of the film.  I also felt that the Pirate Lords were far too underused - I was expecting them to do something in the final epic battle.  I also didn't understand why Sao Feng seemed to regard Elizabeth Swann as Calypso - it just seemed too short, and too contrived an excuse to make her a Pirate Lord.

All that said, it was awesome to see Geoffrey Rush back as Barbossa, who chews the scenery like nobody can.  The man is a fantastic piratical orator.  And while the action scenes were so over-the-top as to require a massive suspension of disbelief, I had no problem with that whatsoever.  I had fewer issues with the marriage ceremony in the midst of a pirate battle, than I did with the three-way sword duel on the runaway waterwheel in Pirates 2.[/spoiler]

Quote from: captainspud on May 31, 2007, 12:42:48 AM
That's because I tend to be right.

on some things at least.  though I've found you to be as difficult as some of the people I collaborate with at school though occasionally too.

I saw it again last night. It was better the second time, especially since I understood certain characters better as well as the entire plot. This might be my favorite of the three, with Dead Man's Chest close behind.

it was more violence then 1 and 2
it is great :thumbup:

I saw the day it came out so im a little late posting. I actually liked it. some parts really ticked me off though
[spoiler]the whole calypso being unleashed was pointless, she just mad a storm making the fight better
another thing the fact that technically jack stabbed the heart
also didn't will already get his heart stabbed meaning he couldn't be the captin, but since jones stabbed it he would be captin but he got stabbed so wouldn't that live the boat captinless :wacko:
and finally i am left with the question is it now "Will Turner's Locker"  :P [/spoiler]

Allow me to be brief (for once).  I must say that I rather liked this film.  It did an admirable job of maintaining many of the subtle symbolic ornaments that kept the death/resurrection motifs afloat (ho ho!) throughout all three films.  I also felt that Depp and Rush helped to keep the film lively by fairly splitting the limelight on screen and assisting the rest of the cast in making the film much more of an ensemble piece.

Elements that I think they could have avoided or improved upon:
[spoiler]
1. Keith Richards: pointless, unless he is meant to complete the triumvirate of the main cast's father motif (e.g. Governor Swann, "Bootstrap" Bill Turner, and Captain Teague).  If he had been woven better into the intrigues in which the Governor and "Bootstrap" Bill found themselves, then he might have served a higher purpose other than to flesh out an odd, extra-cinematic relationship with Depp's character.  (The postmodernist in me liked the move, but the modernist in me thought it did nothing for the film.)  :wacko:

2. Calypso: a fun idea for anyone who has read The Odyssey and grasps the allusions that the film makes, but a real disappointment in the film's execution of her function.  Her clandestine meeting with Davy Jones could have been developed more.  In fact, I first anticipated that Calypso and Davy Jones would give the nod to Return of the Jedi by carrying on a battle of wits and love in private (perhaps at Shipwreck Cove) whilst the East India Trading Company armada and the pirate fleet waged war.  Moreover, the chronology of her binding into human form causes continuity problems: Why would both Jack and Barbossa, as a so-called "pirate lord," be involved in the binding ceremony if Barbossa did not become captain of the Black Pearl until after he led a mutiny against Jack?  :huh:

Perhaps the best use of this character was as a meconaissance that eventually proved to be true: Sao Feng mistakenly believes that Elizabeth is Calypso, but, in the end, Will Turner, the wandering sailor and new stand-in for Davy Jones, leaves Elizabeth, the new stand-in for Calypso, on the beach of an island, just as Odysseus did to Kalypso.  (Incidentally, Kalypso, to the ancient Greeks, meant "I will conceal," which is a version of the promise that Elizabeth made to Will concerning his still beating heart.)

3. Graphic violence: extras with musket ball entry wounds in their foreheads, Mercer's skull (IIRC) broken from the inside out by Jones's tentacles, etc.  The previous two films did a fair job of avoiding most of this violence, usually by doling it out to monstrous, skeletal, or otherwise undead figures who mediated the impact of the image through suspension of disbelief.  This film dealt a good deal of visible damage to the human and the living, and I thought it was unnecessary.  :thumbdown:

4. Elizabeth Swann's motivational Braveheart speech: overdone and melodramatic in the worst way, even for a melodrama.   :thumbdown:
[/spoiler]

I am sure that I might have other minor criticisms, but they are not worth mentioning here and have probably already been covered in this thread.  If I had to rank the three films in descending order of satisfaction (1 being the highest order), in terms of integrity of performance and storytelling, I would have to rank them as 1. The Curse of The Black Pearl, 2. Dead Man's Chest, and 3. At World's End.  If I had to rank the films in descending order of satisfaction, in terms of complexity and rewarding intertextuality, I would have to rank them as 1. At World's End, 2. Dead Man's Chest, and 3. The Curse of the Black Pearl.

ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and The Prat in the Hat

My large bucket of popcorn was more packed with genuine drama, amusement and a fulfilling ending than this movie. It was a real chore sitting through the forced, and failed, attempt to manufacture twists and turns.

I was on the edge of my seat the whole time--debating whether to sneak into another film.