This is topic Pirates of the Caribbean 3 - At World's End (2007) in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-24-2007, 05:02 AM:
 
DAMNIT this was bad! I didn't give a crap who was fighting or for what cause, who died or who lived...just make it stop! This stupid thing was easily about 2 and 1/2 hours longer than it needed to be.

1/2 out of 5 stars

What sucks even moreso than the movie is the fact that this turd will make insane amounts of money this weekend.
 

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Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 05-24-2007, 08:17 AM:
 
What Brad said.

Give me some scissors and some splicing tape, and I good make a better 90 minute movie out of that mess. The film would still suck, but at least it would be over faster.

What were they thinking? The first Pirates movie was a lot of fun, with humor, romance, and action. The second Pirates movie did nothing for me, and for this one, Disney owes me 3 hours of my life back. This film is almost devoid of humor, unless you happen to think that J. Depp prancing around is funny in and of itself. It was overly complicated, took itself far to seriously, and dragged on way too long.

Another triumph of CGI over story telling.
 

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Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 05-24-2007, 12:17 PM:
 
I wonder, if I used a pitch bender, if anyone would notice it running at 30fps. It'd be like the guys doing the Mac Classic, "we're saving lives".
 

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 05-24-2007, 02:56 PM:
 
Oh my goodness... I was so looking forward to this movie, and it's the freakin Matrix all over again. ARG! Hollywood is in trouble. I think it's safe to say it now. They really have no clue why the first Pirates was such a hit. I don't know how many times this has to happen, but it seems like any original movie that proves to be a huge box office hit ends up being an complete and absolute accident.

When I saw the first Pirates, at the point where Mr. Gibbs and Jack Sparrow said "Take what you can... Give nothing back..." I actually snapped out of the movie for a moment and thought, "Holy cow, this movie is incredible." And I left feeling like I had just watched Raiders Of The Lost Ark for the first time. The second one seemed like it was off base a little bit, but I was willing to give it credit for being the awkward story in the middle. With this movie, I couldn't wait for it to end. If I wasn't the guy running the show, I probably would have left about 1/3 of the way into it.

Hollywood is completely devoid of people who understand how to tell a good story, captivate an audience, and make a two hour escape that's fun. Where was the fun adventurous music? Where was the mystery and suspense and romance and action? Who were the bad guys? For that matter, who were the good guys? What the hell happened here??

So, I think it's over guys and gals. Pack it in. Start looking for a job in another industry, because this one is done.

HOW DO YOU SCREW UP PIRATES OF THE FREAKIN CARIBBEAN???

The good news is that our print had a little bit of a static problem or something around one of the splices which caused the film to jam in the brain, which caused the projector to chew up about six feet of it. So one of our three prints is now about four seconds shorter than it was, which in this case is a good thing.

Matt G. and the gang know how to tell a good story, and I know the Harry Potter story is a good one. So it looks like I still have The Simpsons and Harry Potter to look forward to this summer. And I still have high hopes for Transformers and Die Hard - even though Die Hard looks like it's trying to pack the entire movie into the trailer. Ugh.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-24-2007, 03:28 PM:
 

quote: Mark J. Marshall

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Hollywood is completely devoid of people who understand how to tell a good story, captivate an audience, and make a two hour escape that's fun.

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In truth, there's a large number of very talented writers and directors who have the ability to create cinematic classics.

The problem is 6 multinational multimedia conglomerates own all the major movie studios and pretty much control all of what gets shown in American movie theaters. Everybody from the corporate board members to ego-maniacal producers on the set fight their hardest to fuck up a good screenplay and undermine a director's singular vision. Those guys have to change the movie to what they think the market will want. And that usually means doing shit that has already been done before. Minimize risk.

There's too many cooks in the kitchen. And as I've repeated over and over again, the "cooks" in the Hollywood business prefer to keep feeding everybody the same flavor of vanilla they've been shoveling for years and expect us all to buy even more of it.

Those business people see too much risk is actually allowing filmmakers to have any real artistic freedom.

With the 30th anniversary of the release of Star Wars happening tomorrow, it's seems Hollywood has lost sight of what made the "summer blockbuster" template work in movie theaters. It isn't about pummeling people with even more CGI and visual effects. The main reason why Star Wars succeeded so well was the simple fact it was so different.
 

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Posted by Mark Strube (Member # 4190) on 05-24-2007, 06:02 PM:
 
I must agree with the general feeling above. I've never been huge into the Pirates films... the first one was entertaining, however the second did next to nothing for me, and the "cut off" ending just pissed me off. I don't care if there's another one coming out, learn how to end a damn movie! This third did a bit more for me than the second, however I think that's mostly thanks to the great VFX. (The scene with the stairs "exploding"... my mouth was agape. No drool though.) This whole Pirates phenomenon with people going absolutely nuts over these films is completely beyond me. I'm looking forward to Transformers more than I was looking forward to this... and that's Michael freaking Bay, not the greatest track record. At least he knows how to make things blow up real nice... and make the people blowing those things up look real good as they're doing it. I predict Transformers will be much more fun since it'll be an unapologetic popcorn flick, and not take itself so seriously.
 

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Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 05-25-2007, 12:51 AM:
 
But seriously, what the hell is POTC doing taking itself seriously for anyway?

I saw a bit of it last night while visiting a cinema...the Flemish subtitles looked more interesting to me.


 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-25-2007, 10:54 AM:
 
I'm not a Pirates fan, so my opinion of the movie is based on reactions I see from our audiences.

What surprised me was: Not one person walked out last night. I thought sure, with the movie being 3 hours, we'd have some people just say 'the hell with it' and leave. But nobody left, in fact the bathrooms weren't even all that busy, which means the people were really getting into the movie.

The most common comment I heard afterward was "It's pretty good but it's TOO LONG."
 

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Posted by Christian Appelt (Member # 1067) on 05-25-2007, 11:17 AM:
 
I saw the first PIRATES movie, and the only thing that remains in my memory is the great beginning when Sparrow steps on solid ground from his sinking ship. I remember there was tons of CGI which became tiring after an hour or so.
So I didn't see the second film, and judging from the trailer, tthe third one has just more effects, longer running time and less ideas.

No desire to watch it, especially when I hear of some crappy prints distributed in Germany by Buena Vista - one theatre at Munich had to refund a whole triple Pirates night because the sound of PIRATES #3 turned to Russian dubbing after reel 4 ! So much for quality control...
 

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Posted by Jeremy Weigel (Member # 4208) on 05-25-2007, 01:04 PM:
 

quote:

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one theatre at Munich had to refund a whole triple Pirates night because the sound of PIRATES #3 turned to Russian dubbing after reel 4 !

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quote: Jeremy Weigel

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They didn't pre-screen the print before showing it to the public?

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Sometimes you can't. I believe most of the theaters that had Pirates got the prints early. But if one theater didn't and built it up the day of the screening, what could they really do?
 

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Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 05-25-2007, 03:01 PM:
 
Especially with 5 prints in the place...by the fifth...who's going to want to watch this ?

"Hey, we just found out in the first screening to the public that one of the reels was in Russian!!!"

"Yeah, I noticed that"

"Well, why the f*&k didn't you say something???????"

"That was the best bit."
 

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Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 05-25-2007, 03:01 PM:
 
We got 3 prints. I screened the one that I built.

I had only seen the first film. I was so bored about half-way thru the film that I considered leaving the theatre.

The last hour was interesting.

Most people that see our prints dont get to see the bit of story tacked onto the end of the film after the incredibly LONG credits. They leave as soon as the credits begin!
 

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Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 05-25-2007, 03:21 PM:
 
So do the people that made it!



Here's Paul Byrnes' review from the Sydney Morning Herald...it hit the nail on the head...

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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/05/25/1179601639598.html?from=top5

The first Pirates of the Caribbean was long and sometimes tedious but it had the advantage of being funny - at least when Captain Jack Sparrow was waving his arms and stumbling around like a drunken sailor, which indeed, he was.

Johnny Depp's characterisation of the pirate as rock star, basing his performance on the shipwrecked grandeur of Keith Richards, was inspired and beguiling. Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom added a delicate upper-crust English beauty to balance the scales and form a love triangle. In order to have fights, they needed someone to hold the other sword and that was Geoffrey Rush, as Captain Barbossa, the ghost with the worst dental hygiene on the Spanish Main (but the biggest hat).

When the dialogue reached an exhausted impasse - and that was often - Barbossa and his band of scurvy cut-throat ghosts would steal the ship, start a fight, strand somebody on an island or, if necessary, turn upon each other. Director Gore Verbinski kept this up for 143 minutes, some kind of bum-numbing record for a comedy.

The huge success of the first movie meant that the second and third sequel were shot back to back. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer saved millions in sets and staff and was able to get both movies out just 10 months apart. Given that Dead Man's Chest made twice as much money as the original, he's hoping that At World's End will bring home a third mountain of treasure.

It will make a squillion but the truth is it's not very good. The faults of the first movie are still there, only more so, and it doesn't have the benefit of being fresh. At 168 minutes, it's also longer than either of its brothers, which is just ridiculous. Never mind the quality, feel the length. Worse still, the plot is incoherent and half the movie seems to be taken up with static scenes where the characters try to explain it or complicate it with yet another revelation. It's really a continuation of the second film, rather than a new movie, so if you missed Dead Man's Chest it's even harder to follow.

Here's my attempt to unravel the mystery of the initial set-up (don't worry, this is just the basics). Jack Sparrow died at the end of Dead Man's Chest but he's one of the nine pirate Lords and he has one of the magic pieces of eight that they need for a meeting of the pirate Brethren, so they have to get him back to the land of the living, which means going to Davy Jones's locker. The pirates who were dead in the first movie are all alive again now, back in full bodies but no less filthy. They are led by Captain Barbossa but they lack a ship; nor do they know how to get to world's end, so they try to steal a secret map from the powerful Captain Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat), lord of the Singapore pirates.

Meanwhile, Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander), the unscrupulous local head of the East India Company, has gained control of Davy Jones (Bill Nighy, wearing an octopus head) and his ghost ship, the Flying Dutchman, by obtaining the box in which Jones's heart is kept. Beckett uses Jones as his secret weapon, at the head of a mighty armada, but Jones is secretly pining for his lost love, the sea goddess Calypso, who's in human form (Naomie Harris) on Barbossa's ship, a junk borrowed from Sao Feng, now heading through the ice to ... Oh, who cares? It's all stuff and nonsense anyway, with no purpose other than to occupy great amounts of time between the set-piece battles. That's normal in this kind of film - but it has to be done right or it's boring.

In the first film, most of that work was shouldered by Jack Sparrow, doing his vaudeville routine, with Barbossa in support. There's still some of that banter in the new one, but far too many scenes where the dialogue is about nothing we can care about. Oh dear, the Flying Dutchman must always have a captain; the Pirate King is the only one who can say when they go to war; the nine pieces of eight must be brought together in one place before ... This world has more rules than Tolkien ever dreamed of and more bad dialogue than the last three Star Wars films put together.

In all this miserable talk, there are times when something good happens. One of the best is Sparrow's introductory scene, where we see him running his ship with a crew comprising other versions of himself, all of whom displease him. Another is when the real Keith Richards turns up as one of the pirate lords and Jack Sparrow asks him how he survived. The surrealism could have saved the movie but it's too busy inventing more of the rules-for-play that give structure to video games (the audience this film wants to court).

Why bother inventing interesting characters if you're not going to use them properly? No one went to the first two films to see skeletons fighting with swords, did they? They went to see Johnny Depp's amazing performance and to have a laugh. Depp does his best again but he's captain of a sinking ship in this instalment. At wit's end, more like it.
 

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Posted by Phil Blake (Member # 2012) on 05-26-2007, 12:04 AM:
 
yes .... it was bad

yes ... it will make huge money

why ..... well I guess as long as this sort of stuff keeps bring in full houses they will keep making it.

The masses I have had in and really enjoyed it,obviously they are not people like ourselves.

Its the "In Thing" they are sitting there with a lap full of candy and drinks glued to the screen thinking this is just the greatest ever.Its a sheep like syndrome.

My personal comments on it, well the sound was great in DTS, film print was a little on the grainy side, the story , appeared to have been assembled from cutting room pieces that were left out of the first 2 movies.The forward movement of the story was so painfully slow and mixed up maybe the director was sharing the rum bottle with Johnny.
a 168 minute fight-double cross-fight failed to entertain me.

1 out of five stars.
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-26-2007, 12:19 AM:
 
I've heard that Deppy-poo is willing to make a 4th "Pirates" movie.
 

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Posted by Phil Blake (Member # 2012) on 05-26-2007, 03:36 AM:
 
they will more than likely make that 3.5hours long! and make that out of clippings from this one
 

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Posted by Kyle Anderson (Member # 3504) on 05-26-2007, 02:45 PM:
 

quote: Phil Blake

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The masses I have had in and really enjoyed it,obviously they are not people like ourselves.

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