Pirates III

We went and saw the third Pirates installment yesterday afternoon. We went to the noon showing (the first of the day, but unfortunately not on the UltraScreen) to avoid crowds and because Adam worked in the evening (plus it’s cheaper!) We did pretty well. The theater was nowhere near full. I’d say maybe 40 or 50 people were there. So yay, no elbows, squishing, or nasty old lady perfume to battle.

Both Adam and I had read some of the reviews out for the movie. In general, I’d agree with most of them: It was long, the special effects were definitely more of a focus in this film than either of the other two, there were multiple false endings, confusing alliance switches, and lots of gore and fighting. That being said, I maintain that it was a pretty good movie. There are several sight gags and thinly veiled sexual innuendos that are almost worth the admission price by themselves.

The story is really too complicated to try and describe in that there are many plotlines all happening at the same time, all intertwined in some way, but in a very large nutshell (full of excruciatingly long run-on sentences): Jack needs to be brought back from Davy Jones’ locker because the East India Company has control of the sea because they have Davy Jones’ heart (thanks to Commodore Norrington) and they are strategically wiping out all the pirates so all the pirate lords need to call a gathering to decide what to do to stop their race from being eliminated. All 9 pirate lords need to be there and since Jack is one of the nine, him being dead is kind of a problem. There’s also the issue of Will wanting to stab Davy Jones’ heart to free his father from the imprisonment of the Dutchman (which was kind of his own fault in the first place, but whatever...) But if he stabs the heart, he must take Davy Jones’ place and captain the ship for eternity which would kind of mess up his relationship with Elizabeth although that was already messed up with that whole “she’s in love with Jack but she killed him” thing. Then there’s this whole new Calypso storyline (well, kind of new, but you have to see it to know what I mean) and a whole Singapore thing. **exhales**

Ok, so that probably didn’t tell anyone anything. Really, things do get resolved, there are some hilarious hallucinations, some very sad moments, and lots of double, triple, and possibly quadruple crossing. Plenty of sword fights, stuff exploding, and even a monkey shot out of a cannon. What more could you ask for? (Except maybe an intermission for a bathroom break.) They did leave some open endings for more sequels but we’ll have to see if that happens.

I’m not sure I’d go back to see it again the theater. I think it would be pretty good on the UltraScreen although the second one was probably better with the whole deep-sea Kraken rumbling thing. We’ll probably end up getting the DVD since we have the other two already.

Next on my list of movies to go see: Knocked Up