Pirates of the Caribbean III [Spoilers and Rant Ahead, Yaar]

[Ancient History]

First, let me say that PIII was an enjoyable movie. It also had plot holes you could drive the kraken through. The stone crabs were just really kinda awesome, though.

The beginning was actually very promising. You have a long line of pirates waiting to be hanged, and they march up and get hanged. Then you have this little kid come up, and he's waiting to be hanged, and he starts singing, and soon the whole line is singing, then he's hanged (off camera) and the coin he's holding hits the ground. Beckett, the Head Bad Guy, is told the prisoners are singing and says "Finally."

Now, this is important, because it sets up a plot for the song and for the coin, which later becomes important to getting Chow Yun Fat in the picture, and is then promptly forgotten. By everyone. Which is sad, because it was an otherwise very good idea. Plus, I was kind of rooting for the kid to be Kid Jack making a daring escape and maybe have another scene with his dad.

Many of the jokes in the movie are forced and make no sense, even by the standards of Disney movies. Which is fine, except they take away from the plot. Case in point: the Nine Pieces of Eight are actually Nine Pieces of Crap. Some clever script-writer put that piece of shite in there without thinking "Hey! I could tie this in with the whole coin-song thing at the beginning and it would actually make some sense!"

Keith Richards and Chow Yun Fat are both fucking amazing, and both completely underused. In fact, they do what they can to kill Chow Yun Fat as soon as possible. I'd rather they killed the Turners and kept Fat. Orlando Bloom still cannot act, which the director finally realized by keeping him off-camera as much as possible.

Back to plot: Why the fuck are Sparrow /and/ Barbosa both Pirate Lords? I mean, really. Does that make any sense at all? I mean, Barbosa was Jack's first mate for crying out loud!

Characters included and killed unnecessarily: Norrington, Governor Swann, the Kraken. Hell, they killed two of 'em off-camera. Stupid, stupid shite.

Tia Dalma = Calypso -> NOT unexpected, but extremely poorly played out. We had expected that she was actually Davey Jones' love interest, but the whole deal turned out to be...ah fuck, it's just annoying and a poor use of character. Plus, I totally expected Jack to have given a "false" Piece of Eight so she wouldn't be freed. But that's me. As a side note, if she did turn out to be Calypso, then Davey Jones should have become Odysseus. That would only be fair and cool and we could get some mileage out of that.

On to other matters: there is an after-the-credits scene, but it sucks. The movie should have properly ended with Jack and the Map and the Compass. Actually, why does Jack need the Map AND the Compass? Who knows? Ghost willing we'll find out in a movie that contains neither Kiera Knightly nor Orlando frickin' Bloom.

Jack's hallucinations get...very...fucking...tiresome. Especially the ones that come out of his dreadlocks.

[Kitt]

I concur that the beginning was both stunning and a let down. I wanted the kid to be Jack. I was also extremely saddened that they killed off the Kracken. I wanted to brandish my sword and shout, "YARR SQUIDDEY!" *pouts*
Regardless, I enjoyed the utter lack of Orlando, and the stone crab thingies. They were badass.
My biggest complaint was the previously mentioned Jack clones. If they had cut the clone scenes by 3/4, then perhaps it would be ok. Maybe. But only if they kept the half-naked Jack clones, because gratuitous half=nudity makes everything better.
Sidenote: rumor has it, the line, "Nobody move! Dropped my brain." (as spoken by the part-ship clone) was included in the following fashion: the person in charge of deciding what went into the movie and what stayed on the cutting room floor was talking to Depp during one of the grueling days of shooting the clone scenes. Upon his statement that they should add another of the aforementioned scenes, he said the line in question, and Depp liked it so much that he insisted it be added.

[Cash]

I am Jack's tiresome hallucinations.

[Gunny]

I wasn't too pleased with the deaths myself or of the Jack clones after escaping Jone's locker. I was also slapping my forehead at the 'Attack of the 40ft woman' scene. I was expecting so much more when Calypso was freed.

AnHi, there's a reason why there was so little of Keith. Mainly they couldn't keep him sober enough to shoot more scenes, also he hurt himself falling out of a coconut tree and that didn't help matters any. He almost missed crucial filming because of that injury. And then there was the problem of how long the movie was running. More scenes would have made a 3hr movie even longer and they weren't ready to test the limits of your average movie watcher or their kids. Keith did look fabulous though, didn't he?

[Ancient History]

Keith did look fabulous though, didn't he?

Yes he did.

[Just Pete]

Nothing to add here. I enjoyed the movie, better than the 2nd movie, anyway. Other than what's already been mentioned, my biggest gripe was the gaggle of fan-girls sitting right behind me. They actually screamed "he's so hot!" when Bloom struck his pose in the after-credits scene. That was probably his best acting in the movie anyway.

I think they spoiled the next movie for me a bit, though. Jack's looking for the fountain of youth - and 10 years later, Elizabeth doesn't look any older when she's waiting for Will to show up. Kinda gives it away, dunnit?

[Ancient History]

I'm still really pissed about the song. It had a lot of potential, and they frickin' ignored it. Hell, ye can't hardly make out what the kid was singing in the beginning.