Me Mini Movie Reviews: Pirates 3

Tonight a friend and I went out to see Pirates 3. Oh yeah, I’m so current with the movie landscape, aren’t I? It’s only been out for over a month. Anyway, I’d heard generally negative reviews of it around the ‘net, but she had already seen it and liked it and wanted to see it again, so off we went. I trust a friends opinion before the ‘net rumblings, and we both wanted popcorn, and it was a 3 hour movie, so at least we’d get our money’s worth. I was surprised how full the theatre was considering how long it’s been out. I thought it’d be a safe bet for no crowds, but apparently everyone else had the same idea. All in all, it wasn’t that bad a movie. Certainly way better than the second one, but nowhere near as good as the first. Thank goodness they brought (Pirates 2 spoiler alert!) Barbosa back, or it may have been a dud. Geoffrey Rush as Captain Barbosa gave Depp and company someone to play off of that the second one dearly lacked. Not to mention he got some great lines and appeared to be having a ball. Depp as Captain Jack was good, of course, and they seemed to get him back to the likeable, conspiring pirate of the first film instead of the odd hard left character turn they had in the second. Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Swan turned in excellent work as well, and had a major chunk of the screen time as her character got a lot of attention. And Orlando Bloom was…um…there. The music hit all the rights notes and the special effects were top notch. As fantastical as everything is, you’re never taken out of the movie by a moment of bad FX. The computer CG guys did a heckuva job to make everything look right. On the down side, it was rather too long and definitely as convoluted as everyone had said. It gets hard to follow who is making or breaking what deal with who and why. I’d be surprised if even the writers had it all figured out. To quote a line someone says about Captain Jack, “Do you think he plans it all out, or just makes it up as he goes along?” I wonder if that was an in-joke about the script. Chow-Yun Fat’s talent was wasted as well, and there’s an out of nowhere new Calypso 'deus ex machina' character too. Don’t think about it all too hard and just go with it and it’s a pretty fun flick though. I’d probably watch it again once it hits DVD, unlike Pirates 2, which really had no rewatchability factor. The humor is back, the action set pieces are fewer between but great spectacles, and Captains Jack and Barbosa are the real reasons to watch it. Bear in mind it’s heavy with the Swan / Turner show, but even that’s bearable enough. And hey look, no giant squid either. Oh, and stay through the credits if you want the whole story.