The second Pirates Of The Carribean film, Dead Man’s Chest, ends
on a cliffhanger with Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) being dragged down to
Davey Jones’ Locker by the mighty Kraken, a legendary and most formidable sea
monster which was expertly rendered by the CGI artists working on that film.
When I saw the scene of Sparrow putting up a brave, yet futile struggle against
the Kraken, I actually had high hopes for the third Pirates film, because I was
looking forward to a rematch of sorts with this really cool creature. I figured
that, at one point in the film, Sparrow, along with comrades Will Turner
(Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightly) would have to battle the
Kraken in a scene worthy of a scene from a Ray Harryhausen fantasy film. But
this hope was dashed when I saw the scene with the crew finding the Kraken
already dead, beached on shore like a wayward whale.
Instead of a fanciful showdown which recalled the fantastic films of old, we get a dry, unimaginative sequence where a bunch of crabs all carry Jack’s ship from the desert where it was marooned towards the shore; where he just happens to find his rescue party, all ready and waiting for him. And I realized, very quickly, that the makers of the third (and hopefully final) Pirates film just didn’t care. And after a while, neither did I. The hackneyed plot deals with how Davey Jones and the supernatural power behind the Flying Dutchman are now working for the dreaded East India Company, under the command of Lord Beckett, a glorified bean counter who’s not above ordering mass executions--especially with cute little waifs who sing pirate songs. At first I thought I put the wrong disc in and wound up watching a Sondheim musical. For once, I was on the villain’s side: quick, hang the little bastard, before he starts the second verse!
The film tries very hard to be a message about how the joyful, rollicking
spirit of pirates the world over is in danger of being stamped out by the
soulless businessmen represented by the EIC. Yet the "heroes" presented here,
these bright, shining examples of the pirate world, are all a bunch of
back-stabbing liars who--as illustrated in one scene--wouldn’t hesitate to gun
each other down in cold blood the first chance they got. Pirates 3 really
doesn’t serve as a glowing recommendation for the pirate life, thanks not only
to its unsavory cast of characters, but to a dull-witted production design that
has nearly every set look like a rotten, water-logged wreck. The dark and dingy
look of the film made me ache to watch something else even before the first half
hour was over.
But with a running time at nearly three hours, the torture that Pirates 3 inflicts on the viewer soon becomes excruciating. While watching this, I did something that I very rarely do: I stopped in the middle of the film and then watched the second half the following day, hoping that the break would be just what the doctor ordered. But as I sat down to watch the second half of the movie the next day, I still felt the kind of dread that a schoolboy had when he knew he still had to get his algebra homework finished. Unfortunately, the movie didn’t disappoint me in that regard; the second half was just as bad as the first. Hey, I hated this movie, plain and simple, and there’s really nothing whatsoever to recommend about it. Avoid it if you can, and if you want to see pirates on the high seas, check out the first POTC film, which--compared to this piece of tripe--is a masterpiece in comparison.
--SF
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