Shouting Parlay In A Crowded Movie Theatre

I wouldn't want to break a promise.

Last July, I gave a lukewarm review of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest in this entry. At the time, I was disappointed at having seen a 2 1/2 hour movie with no resolution to the problem at hand and a cliffhanger advertising the next -- in short, I saw half of a movie. So I gave half of a review.

Last night, I saw the third movie in the Pirates franchise: At World's End. I wasn't expecting much, and that's exactly what I got.

First of all, the movie is three hours long. I am so annoyed by the trend of late to make movies as long as possible. I'm not sure if it's meant to make up for the fact that it costs so much to get in these days, or if today's filmmakers really think their stuff is so good that none of it can be left on the cutting room floor. It makes a good movie boring and my butt numb.

Secondly, it would have been so very easy -- with some much-needed-anyway editing -- to resolve the story at hand in Dead Man's Chest with the first part of the story in At World's End. And they would have had a fine cliffhanger opportunity there as well. The first hour or so was what should have been the end of the last movie, and I found myself annoyed about that all over again.

But my main complaint at this juncture is that they really don't seem to care anymore. They know people will come to see this movie, so they slap together as many swashbuckling special effects as they can, along with plenty of swaggering from Johnny Depp (who, beautiful as he is, loses some of his Jack Sparrow-ness as time goes on -- there were moments this time in which his character seemed downright serious). Taking the last installment into account, the plot of this one didn't even make sense. A couple of characters went through complete character changes, without any explanation whatsoever. It's like they said, well, we have to put these characters in these scenes, so let's give them something interesting to do, even if it has nothing to do with anything they've done before.

Taking it for what it was, I found the movie entertaining; I enjoyed the swashbuckling, and the swaggering. But I don't know if I'll feel the need to return to the theatre for another Pirates experience, should there be one. It looks like there will be, because although this movie settled the plot from the last movie, it never really resolved the issues that began in this movie. So I suppose that means each installment to come will simply be an advertisement for the next one.

Well, they'll have to get their booty somewhere else, 'cause I don't think I'm buying.