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| Monday, January 21, 2008 12:39 PM |
| On the Viewer - Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End |
 by Fëanor |
Good lord, what a mess this film is. It's the third (and possibly final) in the popular Pirates series from Disney, a series which, in the main, I've enjoyed. Poppy and I were immediately struck by how seemingly un-Disney this entry is when, after skipping past various trailers for various kid-friendly Disney films, and watching the incredibly detailed and realistic computer-animated Disney logo, we were immediately treated to lines and lines of people being hanged, including a small child. This sequence was followed by an attractive woman being ogled and then strip-searched. I was thinking Walt must be spinning in his grave at such an incredible rate that he just might rise up out of it like a helicopter. But actually, now that I think about it some more, Disney films, even the old classics, do tend to have a lot more death, near-nudity, and sexuality in them than you might realize, so maybe this movie isn't so unusual after all.
Anyways, as this one opens, the lovable Captain Jack has been sent to Davy Jones' locker, and our heroes (including Jack's one-time enemy, Captain Barbossa) plan to sail to the end of the world to get him back, so that they may then convene a meeting of all the pirate lords and thus band together to stop the pirate genocide being led by Lord Cutler Beckett, who has Davy Jones, his creepy crew, and their spectral ship under his command, thanks to the fact that he has Jones' heart under lock and key. Got all that? It took me quite a while to piece it all together, because the plot of the film is ridiculously complex, with many layers and characters, and each character has his own true, secret purpose that he or she is hiding from the others, and sometimes even from him or herself. Trying to follow why anybody's doing what they're doing at any given time is nearly impossible, so I found myself in a pretty much constant state of confusion, not only as to what exactly was happening, but also why it was happening at all. It doesn't help that all of the film's various plotlines begin in medias res, so you have to catch up as it goes along. And did I mention that the movie is an endless, punishing, unbelievable 2 hours and 50 minutes in length?!
All of that being said, there are actually a lot of really creative story ideas and visuals in this movie. And there are some really funny and clever scenes. Getting Keith Richards to star as Captain Jack's Dad - a brutal master of the Pirate Code named Captain Teague - was a stroke of pure brilliance. Bill Nighy is wonderful as Davy Jones, his character enhanced a great deal by amazing special effects. Johnny Depp is hilarious and excellent as always. The concept of being trapped in Davy Jones locker, and sailing to the end of the world to get there, and seeing the dead souls sailing in that direction, each in his/her own little boat, and the whole thing about the pirate lords, and the pirate king, and binding the goddess in human form - all of that stuff is really cool. I just wish they could have built a better movie out of all these great ideas.
Instead we get a movie where Chow Yun-Fat is mostly wasted in a small part as the ridiculously gullible Captain Sao Feng. This guy overhears a vague suggestion that Elizabeth Swann might be a Goddess, and immediately buys it hook line and sinker, without requesting or receiving any proof whatsoever. And speaking of the Goddess subplot, it really feels like it's building up to something huge, and then it doesn't really go anywhere. When she's finally freed, she just gets really big, makes a bit of a whirlpool that doesn't affect anybody all that much, and then disappears, never to reappear. Lame! There's also a terrible scene that I groaned all the way through where Elizabeth gives one of those incredibly cliched and melodramatic speeches that's supposed to buck up her fellows to fight a war against impossible odds. I've gotten tired of this plot mechanism since I saw it in, oh I don't know, every single fucking movie I've seen since Braveheart?!
So yeah. Definitely not my favorite of the Pirate movies. I think they were just trying too hard with this one. They had way too much story, way too many characters, and it went on way too long. It ends up being overly complex, unbelievable, clumsy, and nonsensical when it should just be a fun, magical pirate adventure. And the bits of it that are creative and clever and actually filled with fun and adventure are few and far between. |
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