There's not much I can say about this film that hasn't already been said by a multitude of bloggers, none of whom said it better than Jeff over at Conditional Axe (née A Love of Great Trash). If, however, you crave a disssenting opinion, then may I direct you to The Explosively Talented Christopher Bird, whose critique is well-written (however incorrect and foolish it may be).
Though I mostly agree with Jeff, I want to make one point: this should not have been the third movie. I truly, deeply feel that this script, and that of POTC 2, should have had major surgery done on it to turn it into a single movie -- Pirates of the Caribbean: Davey Jones' Locker.
I hate, Hate HATE movies that have an incomplete ending, even when I know there's a sequel coming out the next year. HATE it. I see it as a sign of storytelling weakness. And so, to my mind, Dead Man's Chest is only redeemed by virtue of At World's End tidying up the plot strings.
So if you do plan to see it, here's my suggestion: watch POTC 2 again, and when it ends pretend that it's actually intermission. Then go see POTC 3. Trust me, it'll hang together a lot better and feel far more complete.
I'd like to see it, but my feelings about intellectual property rights make me object to pirating movies...
ReplyDeleteIt might help that I watched both films the night before I saw At World's End.
ReplyDeleteI generally agree that egregious cliffhangers are a horrible film tactic, but disagree that that applies to Dead Man's Chest. DMC is a complete film that has a few unresolved plot threads, much like The Empire Strikes Back.
Yeah, but at the end of Empire, I was still going "But what the hell??"
ReplyDeleteKeep in mind, I'm NOT a Star Wars fan (jeez, I wrote the next post's comment first, too..) when I say this, but New Hope was the only really good film. Han's rich, Luke and Leia have a spark (and don't know they're related, ewww), Chewie gets his medal, we think Vader's dead, the Death Star blew up, and the Rebellion will win back the universe, one day. Then in Empire everything turns to shit, the good guys are losing, Billy Dee Williams rears his ugly pimp-head, Han's not dead, but not really alive at the moment, Boba Fett's wasting people, Luke loses a hand and gains a father (yikes) and BAM the movie's over. WTF? Then..Ewoks. The less said there the better.
The Matrix movies were the same way. First one was great. I didn't need to know that the last hope of humanity was a bunch of dirty, sweaty, raver hippies and that Morpheus (badass Morpheus) was a joke. Oh, and here's a computer that's suspiciously reminiscient of Skynet.
Pirates, though. I really liked the second one, except for the cliffhanger and unresolved plot threads, but I do think 2 and 3 may well have made a better movie, and have the third movie be the last days of real piracy in the Carribean.