Everyone knows I do not listen to reviewers, which is just the most ridiculous scenario ever, since I am reviewing DVDs (at this time) for your pleasure - and mine. But I think most reviewers have become too jaded and are too full of themselves and want to be seen as too high-brow and taken too literally; they're "real" journalists, after all.
Screw that. I AM a real journalist, so I can write what I like about what I like about what I see. (No, I won't tell you where.)
But I am an action-oriented girl: fights, explosions, chase-senses that keep you on the edges of your seats, double-crosses that seem the end of the world until they become double-double-crosses. You know the stuff. Blow it up, char the clothes, get too close to the danger-spot...these are all the things I love, and I bet you I am not the only girl out there who does, but I bet you I am the only one with Curves and Nerves who will lead you on a tour of the best and worst of the genres.
And love every minute of it.
So, Mr. No Couch Bouncing will not go to theatres (sticky floors, people talking, people in general, prices, bathroom breaks where you can't hit "Pause"), and in general, I am in total agreement with him on all aforementioned marks against theatre experiences. Except James Bond in Gromann's (or whoever the hell owns it now) Chinese Theatre seeing "Casino Royale" with Daniel Craig, whom I love, but was angry as all hell at his caasting but soon discovered he was the most physically brutal of all the Bonds. Only problem with that one was Eva Green - sexy as hell but accent to kill a small mammal with tusks. In hindsight, Craig was a wonderful choice, and I didn't want Clive Owen to get typecast. *shrug* Sue me. A Blond Bond. I can live with it - can you (filming Bond 22 ((working title at the moment)).) and I'm more than ready.
How did we get from there to here...because I meander like I drink Champagne by the magnum. I do not, but it would be oh-so-nice.
The third installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean trillogy was much anticipated and truly without a word spoken, was much ready to be maligned by all without a scene seen. But it had several things going for it : 1)Keith Richards playing Depp's father, whom he reportedly based his character after, 2) Chow Yun-Fat as one of the treacherous Pirate Lords (and also after "Captain" Jack as Captain Sao Feng from Singapore), 3) the return of Jack Davenport as Captain James Norrington, always of seemingly questionable morality but when it comes to Elizabeth and finding out the truth of matters, we find he is a good man to the core, 4) Bill Nighy as Davy Jones although they killed his pet, sadly, 5) Naomie Harris as the mysterious Tia Dorma, come on the voyage to Worlds End for reasons for her own, and 6) everyone's secret favorite, Geoffrey Rush as Captain Barbosa, leading the expedition to the Worlds End to save Jack, although we're not quite sure why. And that damned undead monkey. Why didn't it turn back?
We open after a bunch of hangings in Port Royale where the East India Trading Company has pretty much suspended all rights and has begun hanging people willy-nilly (did I just say that) and suspending all rights to lawyers, due process, and any other legal rights a citizen should have. Just then, a small boy picks up a coin and starts singing a song, outlawed, I'm sure, and the downtrodden crowd starts singing with him. A barrel is found so the boy can reach the noose and is killed outright, and the falling of the coin is a quite poignant sight. A rather humorous (if you like dark humor) note is when a guard runs to Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander) and says "My Lord, they've started.....singing...." Becket replies, dry as you like, "Well it's about time." Kind of sets the tone.
As the second movie set up, the former crew of the Black Pearl - save Captain Jack Sparrow who went down with the ship - are planning to go to the Wolds End to save their Captain. Tia Dorma is coming for her own reasons. It is a strange and almost "through the looking glass" trip to the other side made by his faithful companions, but as we check in with Jack, we find he's not doing so well himself. It seems there are about twenty of him and they may or may not be hallucinations and he is fighting with one of them over a half a peanut. The rest of them are left to crew the boat, although you're not really sure which one is the TRUE Captain Jack Sparrow. And one of them/him is a chicken. And I think it lay an egg. And...one of them/a hallucination is a goat, and I think he/a Jack hallucination is having amorous thoughts about it. I could be wrong but it seemed that way to me. Our dear Jack has truly lost whatever small marbles he had left. What's more, the Pearl is not on any water, it's on salt flats, as he finds as he takes a face-first header off the side of the boat. (If that was a special effect, bravo, because it really looked like he did it and it hurt.)
Finally, his friends find him, but are not quite sure how to get the Pearl to water, as their ship was crashed in the transition from our world to the next. Tia Dorma proves helpful here, as well, and from beneath her skirts come millions and millions of crabs - don't read into it, just appreciate the help. The crabs carry the ship to the water and get her afloat and Jack figures out the next step, although there is hostility with Barbosa about exactly WHO is the captain of the ship. Get over it already.
Once returned to the right side of the world, the Black Pearl and captain(s) head to the meeting of the Pirate Lords, help to be set up on the sly by Will Turner, and we finally get to meet the infamous father of Captain Jack Sparrow, Captain Teague, who is the keeper of the Pirate Lore and Legends and the Rules for which all must abide. And he plays a guitar. Who saw that one coming? And he's more coherent than Sparrow - who saw THAT one coming?
Barbosa plays a dangerous game and says that the goddess Calypso is with them in corporeal form, locked away as she was by the old Pirate Lords years ago, and it is time to let her go. Sao Fang asks only to accompany Elizabeth to the meeting place on his boat and he will leave her alone. She agrees, angering Will, who believes she is keeping secrets from him. Once on Sao Feng's boat it becomes apparent that he thinks she is Calypso, and if he sets her free, he would be her humble servant in exchange for small favors. Suddenly they are attacked by the EITC and Sao Feng is pierced trough the heart by a beam. He gives her his piece to free her anyway, believing it to be the right thing to do, and makes her Captain of his ship.
Suddenly, Elizabeth has a place at the Pirate Lord voting table. But since all the Pirate Lords seem to fight and vote only for themselves, they are at somewhat of a stalemate. Elizabeth wants to fight the East India Trading Company, believing them immoral, and taking over too much of the waters, trade, tariffs, and more. She believes they can win. It is put to a vote - Captain Teague brings out an ancient book that says that all the Pirate Lords have to vote for a Pirate King, and only the Pirate King can decide upon a course of action.
Of course, all the Pirate Lords vote for themselves...except Jack. Jack has a plan where he thinks he will take over the Flying Dutchman as the captain and therefore never die. So Jack votes for Elizabeth, knowing the EITC will call out the Flying Dutchman first to render their foe helpless. Meanwhile, a tender scene takes place in the cells beneath the ships where Tia Dorma, the real Calypso, is visited by her Davy Jones.
"I waited after ten years for you to show up and you never did...why?" He asks painfully. "It's in my nature," she responds. "Would you have me any other way?" He walks around for a minute, angry, confused, hurt, and she says "But I would like to give you my heart, if you will let me." To which he becomes furious, and she reminds him - "You were given one job - to help the dead to the other side, and you have no done that, Davy Jones. And for dat, you will pay." And this is no empty threat she is making, you can tell.
Barbosa, greedy as ever has somehow collected or stolen all the pieces to make Calypso whole again, and right in the middle of the battle of the Pearl heading to the Dutchman, Calypso is freed. She becomes the attack of the 50- foot woman with a vengeance (with reason) and she creates a whirlpool, to which both ships are sucked in, saved only from sinking lower by their masts becoming entangled. They circle round and round and their crews fight vicious battles and Will's father is so far gone that he doesn't even recognize him, he's become part of the ship, even trying to attack him at one time. Elizabeth, having been taken prisoner on the Dutchman before and spoken to Bootstrap in his ship-dementia hears that he is sure that Will will come back for him, but that he can't stay and save him, because to save him, he would have to kill the Captain, thereby giving up any life with Elizabeth. It's a tragic moment and one pregnant with foreshadowing.
The fight rages on and on and finally Will and Elizabeth convince Barbosa as Captain of the ship to marry them, and in a rare moment of heart, Barbosa performs the deed, and we get the kiss we waited three movies for. But the battles are not done yet, and the situations are dire indeed. Both ships are in grave peril. Finally Will gets to The Flying Dutchman and Davy Jones and is ready to save his father, and Jack is already there, good Jack on one shoulder telling him to do what's right and moral and just, and bad Jack is on the other shoulder telling him to run like hell and get out of there, but Jack stays, despite his voices, ready to enact his plan to thwart death. And Elizabeth is there to see the awful inevitability no matter what happens. And Will is struck down by a stray sword. And Jones laughs at him and makes a joke of his life and his love. And Bootstrap carrys the Chest and says like the true member of the crew that he has become, "the Ship must have a Captain." Repeating the statement menacingly and approaching with purpose, we suddenly turn to see Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth sticking a knife into Davy Jones heart. I suppose it doesn't matter he is dead - it is his hand that slays the heart of Davy Jones.
And the crew begins to approach, and their fishy appendages begin to fall off for the sins of the Captain have no longer become their own. They are men once more. And Will Turner knows his job - to escort dead souls from one side to the other. And once every ten years, he gets one day a year with his love. He offers his father his freedom - he has done all this to free his father, but his father says that he wants to serve with his son, so his son tells him to take the wheel. And the East India Trading Company has no idea that a vital change has been made.
The Pearl approaches Beckett's ship on one side and The Dutchman on the other, and the ship is essentially blown to bits, with Beckett repeating over and over "it was only good business..." And we see Beckett sink to the bottom wrapped in his precious EIO flag.
And the movie ends with Will and Elizabeth's one day on shore - their wedding day. The long awaited, much anticipated, and dearly deserved. And he asks her to hold his heart in the chest - it's always belonged to her, anyway, he claimed. She agrees, and...save for some humorous bits, c'est finis.
And a fine finish, if not sad and not deserved if you ask me. But a romp and a riot and never a dull moment and the extras - like the goofs make it well worth it.
So keep a weather eye on the horizon. The Soundtrack is well worth the investment as well.
An Eight - oooooooooh! on my one to ten scale.