He's clearly not Johhny Depp, but the low-budget filmmaker dressed up like
Jack Sparrow is generating buzz on MySpace with Pirates
of the Great Salt Lake. The fake trailer stars a pair of suburban
"pirates" whose most humiliating defeat comes at the hands of an
irate parent who yells at them to "stop speaking in that horrible
accent!"
Pirates
of the great Salt Lake Trailer
Rating
Meanwhile, the real Pirates
of the Caribbean: At World's Endis getting all the global box office love, with Disney claiming victory
over Spider-Man 3 by raking in $401 million in just six days.
Those Pirates profits raise the inevitable question: Will
there be more to come?
Underwire contacted Pirates writers Terry Rossio and Ted
Elliott but at post time had not heard back about from the braintrust
about prospects for a fourth Jack Sparrow tale.
By the way, Sony officials barked back at Disney, accusing the studio
of incorrectly including sneak preview revenues from Italy and France.
Whatever. Pirate 3's $245 million overseas total combined with
new Memorial Day weekend record of $156 million trumps Spidey's
short-lived $382 million benchmark.
On the 30th anniversary of the release of the original Star Wars, Pirates
of the Caribbean: At World’s End dropped. Pirates, more than any
other series since Indiana Jones, has positioned itself as the direct
descendant of Star Wars, that high-water mark in adventure film.
Though the first Pirates movie was less than stellar, it had a
memorable performance from Geoffrey Rush and an icon-in-the-making turn from
Johnny Depp. But it was in the second Pirates film, Dead Man’s Chest,
where things really got cooking. It was, simply, the most fun I’d had at a
theater in a long time: pure spectacle, but with an emotional gravity. The
action set pieces weren’t just perfect; they kept coming and coming and
coming.
In my 2006 “best of” list, I named Dead Man’s Chest my favorite
film of the year. In recounting the movie, I said, “If director Gore Verbinski
can avoid whatever amounts to the Caribbean Ewok in the final installment of the
trilogy [At World’s End], he’s positioned to do George Lucas one
better.” I’m sad to now report that I was a fool to trust Verbinski so.
The director avoids Ewoks, but he makes mistakes in World’s End that
doom the film to a watery grave. What I didn’t see coming was a Pirates
third act as underwhelming — and yet interlaced with moments of brilliance —
as the Star Wars final chapter, Return of the Jedi. All that’s
left is for Verbinski to crank out several prequels that do the same. If he
can’t do Lucas one better, he might as well match him flabby pound for pound.
Unless you’ve seen and were paying attention to the first two Pirates
movies, it’s not recommended you see the third. It would be akin to watching a
foreign-language film without the subtitles. World’s End begins overtly
political: The British East India Trading Company — the boo-hiss villains of
the piece — are suspending rights right and left. Habeas corpus: gone. Jury of
your peers: gone. What is this, Guantanamo? Piracy is even equated with
modern-day terrorism (in the subtext-iest of ways).
All this takes place some months after Dead Man’s Chest ended. Jack
Sparrow (Depp) is still dead, and pirates/enemies of the state Will Turner
(Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightly) are still allied with
Captain Barbossa (Rush), back from the dead (the cliffhanger, gotcha moment at
the end of Dead Man’s Chest).
The crew travels to Singapore to try to convince Captain Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat)
to unite with them against the common enemy, the Brits, and to share a map in
his possession which shows how to get to the titular geographic spot, where the
dead Sparrow has gone to. From Singapore, it’s off to Antarctica, then to
World’s End; for a film whose title refers to the Caribbean, the place sure
doesn’t show up much in this final installment.
The section where we see what Sparrow has been up to while banished to the
afterlife is bizarre, surreal, and risky for a film with so much earnings
potential riding on it. Sparrow has gone mad, stranded in a world with a ship
but no water or wind — in the middle of the bleakest, whitest, most
featureless desert imaginable (that’s right, it’s Utah, where the scene was
filmed). Sparrow has gone mad, and he imagines a crew of Jack Sparrows running
amok on his ship. (It’s like the classic scene in Being John Malkovich,
where the actor sees a restaurant full of others of himself, but without the
brevity.)
The section introduces one of the major flaws in the film. World’s End
spends much too much time winking at how great Depp as Sparrow is, in all his
eccentric glory, but it doesn’t actually have him do enough original things
worthy of the attention. If ever there was a resting on the laurels, this is it.
Another fundamental flaw is how low the stakes in the film are. Barbossa, the
villain in the first film, is now a paternal type, approving of Elizabeth’s
gusto when she acquits herself like a man. (The film is framed in strictly male
terms, the presence of a heroine and a crucial female character to the
contrary.) Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), the best part about Dead Man’s Chest,
is back, but he’s sidelined and defanged in favor of Brit baddie Lord Cutler
Beckett (Tom Hollander). I like Hollander, too, but his character doesn’t have
a tentacle face or a heart-rending back-story. Stick with what works, people.
Dead Man’s Chest was able to mix complex but not convoluted
storytelling. This is something the first and third films are not able to do. World’s
End suffers from too many double-crosses among the film’s principals, to
the point where a good fifth of the film has the consistency of mush. The movie
is preoccupied with moving pieces on the board, from the brig of one ship to
another, but there’s no sense of a grand, clear-headed strategy from the
filmmakers, and there’s too much exposition to ever just have fun.
Some reviewers have pointed to the fact that Pirates is based on an
amusement-park ride. It’s a criticism of the whole endeavor. I see it as a
blessing. Book adaptations are so last year. I’m ready for the days when the
flimsiest of source materials is greenlighted and put in the hands of talented
filmmakers who don’t have to fill a quota for a rabid fanbase. With no
expectation of plot, no expectation of casting, no expectation of slavishness to
a story, Pirates’ makers are free to create the world in the image that
they see fit. Would that, in this case, the results were better.
One of the best parts of World’s End is reveling in a Disney movie
doing things Disney’s never done before. A little more each time, Verbinski
has pushed the bounds of violence, grossness, and mayhem in each of these films.
In any other story, the hanging death of a young boy, people shot in the head
(and being able to see the bullet’s entry point), and characters with
frostbite to the point of broken-off phalanges would be troubling. In this one,
it’s devilish fun to think to oneself, Wow, Disney just hanged a kid!
The worst part about World’s End is how it renders Dead Man’s
Chest inconsequential. The brilliant connector of the series now is saddled
with two deadweight anchors. Is it too late to call a do-over?
by Greg Akers
comments from Wendell 5/28/2007
agree. the best of this film was thrown out with the Wash. I was very
disappointed in "Pirates 3". Scenes dragged on,as if trying to make a
point and they wanted to make sure that we got it.(Don't go it you have not seen
1 and 2).It was way to out there for me. The British NEVER should have had the
upperhand, as implied when they obtained the heart of Davy Jones. Calipso seemed
to be the hightlight of the film, as she grew and grew...into what? nothing but
a vortex that Davy Jones falls into. Where was their reconciliation, their love
that had endured for years as she waited for him to ferry the dead to their
final resting place? The music box? I waited for the end of the credits and was
pleased that Will was able to return to his family, wife and son, that had
waited 10 long years for his return. The same happy ending could have workd for
Davy Jones and Calipso. What of Jack and the Black Pearl? Another movie I
predict. But the dissapointment of #3...As if the best parts of the film were
left on the cutting room floor to get it under the 2 1/2 hr limit.If it needed
3hrs and an intermission then the studio should have given it to us. I hope that
the directors cut of the movie DVD will fill in the gaps, and give us a Pirates
3 movie that we really deserve.
