A review of the films I’ve seen this past week. I only saw one, but it seemed like five.
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END (2007)
Where do I start? Strap in or leave now, because this is going to be a lot of negative bitching and spoiling the, um I ll be charitable and call it a plot. But you know what? That s what I do. So let s start with one of my patented blanket statements: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World s End is the dumbest movie I ve ever seen. And I ve seen a lot of dumb movies. Those Matrix movies are dumb in an almost unsettling way. This is dumber. This is the kind of movie that exists only because the need for product demands it. They ve taken something fun and turned it into a total waste of everyone s time. The first movie was 85 minutes of B children s movie fun wrapped up in pretentious subplot and awful characterization, but I enjoyed the hell out of Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush and I almost always love swordfighting, so I was pretty happy with it. The second movie was nothing more than a trailer for a third movie, though it had occasional bright spots in it, the brightest of which was Bill Nighy having obvious fun as Davy Jones. This movie well, it exists to make money, and nothing else. Since my thoughts of total hatred for this movie are all over the place, I m going to break down nearly every aspect of it and talk about why I hated it so goddamn much.
The Story: There isn t one. There just isn t. There s a bunch of loosely related scenes that come one after the other, and then it stops. The script doesn t bother with such things as plot development, characterization, and story resolution. It just kills time until something like four days have gone by and then it releases you, having safely (and profitably) wasted your time. The first two movies are structured this way: characters come and go, there s a lot of backstabbing, a lot of circles are made (seriously, all the action in these movies does is go back and forth and back and forth over and over), there s set-up for the next movie, and then it all ends with a cool, funny scene and fast music that, for a second, fools you into thinking you ve just seen something incredible. Then you wake up and go: Man, that fucking sucked. This is pretty much the same thing, only somehow even less focused. The filmmakers were so busy setting up everyone s stories in the second movie that they forgot to include the payoff for this one. It s like they got to the end of the second movie, having established everything, and then said: Shit, what do we do now? This is how I feel about the series as a whole, really. I hate these movies (again, The Matrix is an excellent example) where one is successful and they re suddenly all like Hey, if you liked just one, how do you feel now knowing that we meant it to be a trilogy all along?! Yay! Yeah, sure you did. You didn t just pull two more movies out of your ass and then pretend you meant it to be unfocused the whole time. You had it done for years, you didn’t just write it over the course of a three-day weekend and hope the studio would let it slide because, really, the story’s not the biggest concern in one of these faux-epics.
Also, as other critics have pointed out, the movie plunges right in with nothing to remind you of what s going on. It took me a few minutes to even remember what every character wanted. That s another thing about franchises that s extremely irritating; they introduce new characters in each movie and then try to carry every single one along and, even with 27 endings (as in the second movie), they still can t give each character adequate screen time. Not only are a number of players completely wasted in this film, some of them don t even need to be in it at all. And, as I said, the movie has no ending, it just stops and then, after three cruel hours of total suck, has the audacity to set itself up for a fourth movie. You know, just in case.
The whole thing is really ripped off from Sinbad. The entire Pirates trilogy. Why not just watch a good movie like The Crimson Pirate or Captain Blood and chase it with, say, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad?
And one more thing about the I don t know, outline? I don t want to call it a script, that would be more kindness than this deserves. The massive failure of the second movie was the way they tried to make the characters three-dimensional and complex, as if we re supposed to suddenly care about them as if they were people. It was clumsy to take characters like Davy Jones and Jack Sparrow, essentially plot devices, Shakespearean fools, and turn them into something moral. This movie doesn t remedy that; it abandons the concept of three dimensions, thankfully, but still tries to moralize. In it s way, it s worse than what was done with the second movie, because this movie makes the grand mistake of trying to be culturally relevant by commenting on the current administration (Cutler Beckett is George W. Bush, geddit? Good business, geddit?), including a cringe-worthy opening scene that made me want to walk out and punch Gore Verbinski in the nuts.
This is a not a movie you enjoy. This is a movie you hope to survive.
Johnny Depp/Jack Sparrow: I think it s now safe to say that I hate Johnny Depp for doing these movies. I loved him in the first one; he was a great comic device and played it perfectly. He never winked at the audience in a way that said Look at me, I m having fun bein all crazy! He completely inhabited the role and, knowing that Sparrow isn t a character so much as a force for moving the plot along, just went with it. I loved him for most of the second movie, too, until they tried to instill guilt in him and make his motivations more complex. It was like watching Pepe le Pew attempt to reevaluate his life, wondering if it s really his fault that female cat he thinks is a skunk doesn t like him and where his life went wrong. It was embarrassing. In this movie, he just meanders around in a way that says Just give me my fucking paycheck already. There’s so much talent in that man and he’s just pissing it away on this drivel, and I kind of resent him for it a little bit now. I suddenly understand why Sir Alec Guinness hated himself so much for doing the Star Wars movies. The filmmakers have to make him insane and give him conversations with multiple versions of himself in order to give him something interesting to do this time around. He nails it once or twice, but overall Jack Sparrow is completely irrelevant to this movie except that Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow sells tickets.
Geoffrey Rush/Captain Barbossa: Geoffrey Rush steals the whole goddamn show, but I wouldn t want to tell him that. Hey, you were the best part of total shite! What a compliment. He does pretty much what he did the first time: chews the sets right down to the goddamn bolts and just enjoys himself. His reaction shots alone are like pantomime overload, but at least he s trying to enjoy himself. I don t know why, suddenly, he s the most trustworthy character in the whole damn thing, but he was pretty much the only actor worth paying attention to. You can see it in his eyes: he knows it s bullshit, too, and he feels sorry you re watching it, but he s doing what he can to enliven things. Good on you, Geoffrey. You re a gem.
Orlando Bloom/Will Turner & Keira Knightley/Elizabeth Swann: I am as tired of that anorexic little boy who plays Elizabeth as I am of that fey little girl who plays Will. Both, um, actors I guess have always been giant holes in the screen to me. Neither one of them has ever played a role that couldn t have been played as well (or better) by anyone else, including members of the craft service team. That battle scene with the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman on either side of a maelstrom well, one of those ships is Bloom, the other is Knightley, and their total lack of chemistry is the storm, sucking the entire movie into oblivion. Their love story the romance novel aspect of this series has always been its worst feature is mostly dropped in this one, and then we re expected to care a lot about it by the end. I couldn t really figure out why either one of them wanted to rescue Jack, either, except that, well, Disney wanted them to. It s not just Orlando s feyness and total lack of masculinity that bother me, anymore than it s Keira s total lack of femininity and the fact that she looks like dried shoe leather that bother me. They re just both absolutely terrible. And they re so painfully earnest, acting this thing like it s bloody Shakespeare, intoning their shitty dialogue as though they re saying the Most Important Things Ever. Orlando looks all wounded and pleased with himself for having the moral high ground (all he ever does), while Keira bugs out her eyes and juts her lower jaw forward in a ridiculous mockery of emoting (all she ever does). And we re always supposed to believe that everyone in the world finds Keira sexy, right from an opening scene where she s made to strip down to prove she doesn t have any weapons on her (I guess her penis doesn t count as one). When Orlando Bloom gets stabbed in the heart (oh, um, spoiler), I said, very loudly: Finally! Now let s blow this ship up and go home! Please, Hollywood, quit casting these two in anything.
Jack Davenport/Norrington & Jonathan Pryce/Swann: I just point these out to say: what the fuck are they even doing in this movie? They both die pretty quickly and for no real reason except the writers couldn t think of anything else to do with them. Who cares? And don t tell me it s because American audiences are so painfully literal that they need to see every aspect of everything to know a story is really over. I already know that and it depresses me. (Note: I’ve just re-read my review of the second film, and my comments about Norrington and Governor Swann are almost exactly the same. What are they even doing in this story anymore? The movie shuffles them in and shoves them aside.)
Tom Hollander/Cutler Beckett: Gosford Park. Stage Beauty. Paparazzi. Possession. These are but a few of the movies I ve seen that feature Tom Hollander, and yet, like the Pirates movies, I can’t remember him in them. Boring actor playing a boring character with absolutely no menace whatsoever.
Bill Nighy/Davy Jones: I loved Davy Jones in the second movie as a sort of movie monster/plot device. He was a fun rip-off of Captain Nemo with some incredibly good special effects and no real soul, which sums up these movies perfectly. Nighy played him interestingly, of course, because Billy Nighy is incapable of less. He was undoubtedly the best part of Dead Man s Chest (an adequate description of Keira Knightley if there is one), and here he s unceremoniously relegated to the background. He has one good scene that he plays very well, but his story isn t resolved satisfyingly and he s just underused. It s like bringing in Darth Vader and then having him just arrange tables while everyone is fighting, and then dying offscreen.
Tia Dalma/Naomie Harris: She feels tacked on, and her character s big (yet obvious) revelation is tacked on, too. They throw in more shit than anyone could care about here, because there s nothing else going on and they need to pad out the running time. She s neat in the role, but that role is so extraneous that it s easy to forget she s even there.
Stellan Skarsgard/Bootstrap Bill Turner: I just want to point out once again that I think Stellan Skarsgard is the most boring actor alive. At least, I think he s alive, the way he does everything in every movie so placidly, I can t tell. He s a big part of what made the second movie so damn boring, and his presence merely adds to the gloom in this one.
Chow Yun-fat/Sao Cheng: Utterly wasted in what is essentially a pointless cameo.
Nearly Everyone Else: Look, I appreciate that you re trying to be funny, but there are just far too many characters in this thing for you to do much of interest. Kevin McNally, you especially are someone I enjoy in these movies. But seriously, do there have to be this many characters when so much nothing is going on?
Keith Richards/Captain Teague: Awesome. Somehow, Keith Richards is the most understated part of this movie, and it makes him look even better by comparison because he s not mincing around screaming for attention at the top of his lungs. Plus, you know, he s Keef. How do you not love Keef?
The Monkey: After seeing this movie, I said to my mom: Obviously, the most talented actor in the movie was the monkey. He played the exact tone, wasn t too serious, didn t hog his scenes, and never once got irritating. That s a real professional.
Mom: I liked the parrot, too.
Me: Yeah, but the parrot just played off the monkey. He gave that parrot a lot to work with.
The Big Battle: A waste. They line up ship after ship with the promise of this enormous battle between armadas, and then the battle is just between the two ships. And it s all in the dark with rain falling so you can t see how shitty the special effects are. At some point, I just kind of realized that I didn t care who won or who was fighting or why they were fighting. All I knew was that my ass hurt and I wanted to get something to eat. The movie, despite all its flailing and flop sweat, couldn t even stir up enough interest in me to finish the thing. Oh, I did, but I wasn t happy about it. Like too many American movies now, this one just goes on forever. The battle scene except for Sparrow and Davy Jones dueling, I could not have cared any less.
The Score: Hans Zimmer continues to prove that he cannot write music. He writes loud, thumping tones, lets underlings write everything else, and then recycles and steals. His last great score was for Backdraft in 1991; ever since then, he s just been moving notes slightly and selling it as something new, when it s really the same thing. Everything else is from Holst or Wagner or Richard Strauss or other Romantic and Modern era composers. I especially found his naked attempt at ripping off Ennio Morricone distasteful in this one.
Cinematography/Production Design: I ll tell you why this movie didn t look original to me, but you re probably tired of hearing it. This is yet another movie (and I ve been seeing them a lot recently) that completely rips off the films of Terry Gilliam. Children of Men did it. Pan s Labyrinth did it. Every Harry Potter does it. Stop it. Find your own creepy imaginitiveness. And stop ripping off Tim Burton, too, his weirdness is conventional and boring.
Special Effects: Just as awful as the second film. With the exception of Davy Jones, and obviously a lot of work went into him (I wonder if the sheer volume of hours it takes to do the Jones effects are what shoved him aside for so much of this movie), the crew of the Flying Dutchman are just as unpleasant to look at as they were the first time around. And not by design. They look all blurry and monochrome, as though they re unfocused and unfinished. When I look at them, my eyes can t focus and I get a headache. This movie ached my head and ached my ass. It s like an endurance test and not a film at all. There s not story, it can t be a film!
The Running Time: It’s not an epic just because it’s an hour longer than it has to be. There’s at least forty minutes you could cut right out of this thing. Seriously, someone needs to take all three movies and whittle them into either one movie that runs 160 minutes, or two movies that run 95. Three movies is just excessive.
So, to recap, I hate this movie. It s the dumbest thing ever, and despite how this review makes it look, I can barely remember any of it because it s so instantly forgettable. It s disposable. It s crap. * star, for Geoffrey Rush and the monkey, and a little bit of Billy Nighy, all adrift in a sea of stupidity.
File this under the “random” category.
The 1980s in New York saw the flowering of such playwrights as Durang, Wendy Wasserstein, Mark O’Donnell and Richard Greenberg, and Pierce was fortunate to appear in plays by all of them. He worked at Playwrights Horizons, the Public Theater, Shakespeare in the Park and a lot of regional theaters such as the Guthrie in Minneapolis, Chicago’s Goodman and Long Wharf in New Haven, Conn. Pierce got to Los Angeles in the early 1990s when his partner, actor-writer-producer Brian Hargrove, wanted to write for television. A short-lived Norman Lear series, “The Powers That Be” led to “Frasier.” And the rest is, well …
