Pyrites of the Carob Bean, Tree

[cinemabon]

Review to follow tomorrow after viewing with full disclosure then. In the meantime, enjoy your holiday weekend. May it bear the fruit of great cinema.

[cinemabon]

Pirates of the Caribbean three – directed by Gore Verbinski


***********Spoilers in this review*************


Gone is the fun, gone is the mirth; in its place, ‘Pirates’ takes itself very seriously this outing, as this pirating business moves on in its third rendition. In the opening shot, eight people, men and women, are marched to a scaffolding, and graphically hung before we can munch a first handful of popcorn. Within the next five minutes, they will execute a pile of people, including a little boy. For the first time, we see a darker side to this Disney ride, and one I’m not certain Walt would have approved.

The unfeeling English Lord (Tom Hollander) is out to take over the region. What his motivation is, what his goals are, what his driving force might be, is never explained. We are given a hint here and there, but never the answer. This vagueness runs its course throughout the film. No one is sure of anyone or anything. Who is the villain? Who can we trust? Lovers betray each other as do friends. More uncertainty. I’m the master of following plots, but in this case, I became the expert at lunch time after the movie when my wife and son peppered me with questions about the film’s plot. “What was that about?” they asked me a dozen times or more!

As anyone could guess from the previews, Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) returns from the dead. This is only possible because his friends are willing to travel to the world of the dead to retrieve him and his ship (which surprisingly shows up intact; remember, it was destroyed in the last film). In the afterlife, Sparrow sees different versions of himself as different members of the crew, each one with a distinct personality, but clearly a clone of Jack. Why this goes on for nearly fifteen minutes of film time is both bizarre and unexplainable. The film drags on as we finally get Jack, along with the Black Pearl and his lovable quirky crew (the only comic relief in the film) back to the living.

Davy Jones, once a real man, is trapped by the person holding his heart (another absurd twist). The English Lord orders him to attack the pirates. Yet, he secretly pines for the mysterious Til Dalma, also a powerful sea goddess. The goddess of the sea is trapped inside Til’s body. She longs to be free and love Davy Jones once again. However, their relationship is a twisted tale of betrayal as well. When the pirates hold a council, they must decide if the sea mother is to be released and call for the pirate’s code. Here is the best moment in the film, when the real pirate, Rolling Stones lead guitarist, Keith Richards himself (dressed as a pirate), comes out with the book, plops it on the table, then proceeds to serenade the gathering on the guitar (the true irony is Johnny Depps character is base on Richards).

The final battle between Davy Jones crew and the crew of the Black Pearl inside the whirlpool of a maelstrom is anti-climatic and about as exciting as the 27th time in the film they use the same pirate music again, pounding the same tune until you want to vomit from being spun in a circle so many times.

So the battle is over, Jack has survived, he’s got the Pearl back and all is right with the world (I purposely left out one surprise part of the ending which would be a critic’s cardinal sin to reveal, like ‘rosebud!’), right? Wrong! I hate to say it, but the Bruckheimer team is making a fourth film and they leave the final shot in the film up in the air… again. After nearly three hours of too many special effects shots, convoluted plots, and battles that drag on and on, I’m too damn tired to care.

[mouton]

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END
Written by Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio
Directed by Gore Verbinski

Pintel: Slap me thrice and hand me to Mama. It’s Jack!

Have you ever noticed how both good and bad things are said to come in three’s? The month of May at the movies this year does nothing to answer that question but it does take the entire superstition that much further, by making it so when things, good or bad, come in three’s, nothing else comes at all. The big commercial theatre where I saw PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END was playing only three films on its dozen or so screens. This summer’s other high profile third chapters, SPIDERMAN 3 and SHREK 3, joined it. With these three films monopolizing every screen, how can any other film come to matter or register a dent in the consciousness of filmgoers? One could conclude that the theatre is just giving the people what they want but how accurate is that? By the time the third part in a series rolls around, people seem to be tired of the whole thing and just ready for it to be over. Given how much bile has been spilled over all three of the aforementioned films, it appears as though it has become cool to turn on those that have provided so much entertainment in the past. Luckily for Hollywood, the trend has done nothing to stop the money from rolling in.

I didn’t care for PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST. I found it to have had its comic moments but to be overdrawn and tedious at times, lacking the spontaneity and energy of the first film, THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL. As a result, I didn’t have much of an interest in AT WORLD’S END. The PIRATES series falls into a category of trilogy where the second and third installments were not specifically intended when the first was conceived. What was once a complete story must be expanded into a longer series. Some storylines are given back-story while others are stretched so thin that it becomes distracting to actually grasp how everything is connected. In AT WORLD’S END, Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) needs to be brought back from the dead, known here as Davy Jones’ Locker. With a variety of selfish motivations, Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) make the dangerous journey along with their regular crew. Once back, Jack and company must defeat Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander) and his fleet, who intend to rid the world of all pirates. Along the way, a number of other sub plots find some screen time but find themselves ultimately left ashore. Having already seen the first two films, I found it somewhat difficult to piece the muddled puzzle together at times so I can only imagine how lost one would be coming into this film without any previous pirate experience. Overly complex stories are almost inevitable though when you expand a story that was never intended to be expanded to begin with.

The PIRATES series has relied increasingly on visual effects as the series has progressed. While the transitions between pirates and the undead in the first film were sleek and engrossing, the film itself struck with viewers thanks primarily to the wild and unpredictable performance of Johnny Depp. Depp has been just as consistent at being inconsistent in the two latter films but there’s only so much further the character can go. Subsequently, the visual aspects needed to step it up to deliver that which a summer blockbuster is expected to deliver. Back for a third time is director Gore Verbinski, taking a decidedly darker, more surreal approach to the pirates he made famous. When a film opens with mass hangings and the announcement that a number of citizens are being robbed of their fundamental rights, you know that fluff is not about to follow. Only here, it does. What ensues is a ride that bounces back and forth between varying visual motifs that leave the viewer lost at sea. That being said, I don’t think I will forget that close-up of Depp’s nose traveling along the screen, sniffing for a peanut, for a very long time.

It’s hard to say goodbye to anything that has been with you for so long. It’s even harder for studios to imagine never seeing the size of treasure that Jack and crew haul in with each of their adventures. Hence, even as this trilogy comes to its intended close, further pirate plots are being cooked up by studio heads that will likely plow ahead with them with or without their regular cast. That doesn’t stop AT WORLD’S END from ensuring that every possible audience satisfaction is met before the credits role. Characters say their goodbye’s almost as if they were the actors themselves saddened by the end of their own experiences together. The film suddenly seems to be fully aware of its own significance in the pop culture fabric. The problem here is the film is giving itself more credit than it likely deserves as it seems these days that more people flock to trilogy closers out of obligation and not anticipation.

www.blacksheepreviews.blogspot.com

[cinemabon]

Do you honestly believe Verbinski made a 'closer' film? I believe Depp has sold his soul to the real estate devil. How else will he pay for his private island? This is not an end to anything. Like the ride at Disney, the boats keep going round and round where you get on and get off but the plot never changes and the ride is always the same.

[tabuno]

I enjoyed both Spiderman 3 and End of the World and felt each third installment brought a deeper more darker but substantive adventure thrill to popular movie audiences. I was reminded of Being Malkovich as Johnny Depp became a doppleganger in End of the World . I am more and more intrigued how the small progessive steps of popular movies is taking the mass audience into more and more substantive issue and themes. Betrayal, death, and fantasy themes and more complicated plots only serve to indicate that the movie industry is slowly growing up with an increasingly sophisticated popular audience.

[cinemabon]

***************spoilers*********************


Judging by the box office, tab, many are inclined to agree with you. However, I must agree with Mouton. What is the story about this time? Are we rescuing Jack... again? He's dead, but then they come up with a way that not only resurrects Jack, but Barbossa and the cursed Pearl crew, too. Are we next to resurrect Norrington (Elizabeth's first fiance) and Will Turner in the next film? Or like Rocky, are we to go on in endless sequels, running amuck around the Caribbean with pieces of maps, pieces of eight, and fantasy creatures from Greek mythology (the Cracken) thrown in for good measure. Disney has many rides. It's time they pick another one to exploit.

[Johann]

The Immortal Mr. T uttered these timeless words in the 1980's:
Don't gimme no jibber jabber!


There was a lot of jibber jabber in the third "Pirates".
A lot of jibber jabber and a lot of I-don't-know-what.

I'm still trying to come to grips with what I've just seen. This film was all over the place. How about these apples:

- Jack is hallucinating (?) in Davy Jones locker? How are kids supposed to know what the hell is going on?

- Will has next to nothing to do until a massive swordfight where he and Captain Liz exchange wedding plans. And show up to sip tea with Davy and come in when he's supposed to be Captain of the Pearl- yeah, I don't know either. Who wrote this movie?

- the character of Cutler Beckett- pure bewilderment for me. Aliens and oranges, people and prunes. No clue what he was all about. Just another token bad guy in a densely cluttered sequel.
(A tea-sipping bad guy. You know, the powdered-wig wearing type).

- What was Jack doing in this movie? Nothing really significant, other than being the center of a precarious rescue that even Barbossa agrees to go along with. Did anybody envision this series to take this path? Honestly?
Did they plan anything beyond Curse of the Black Pearl?

The only sequence that impressed me beyond belief was the rocking the ship scene, the one where the whole thing goes tits up and back- right awesome scene that was. Absolutely cool. With the sunrise right after- just great moviemaking.

But everything else in the movie?
Hard to review.