Pirates of the Caribbean III *SPOILERS* Part 6

Technological Critique

I know, this is terribly overdue. The movie isn't even in theaters any more. But that's okay, 'cause it means I can get the multi-disc soon...Which will tell me all about how they made it, which is really really cool. * thinks about inserting a jab about OB in here, but decides that T&M won't be reading any time too soon, so it isn't worthwhile. *

Anyways, we can start out looking at the soundtrack. Very well done, very expressive. Even though I do not care for some of the pieces as stand-alones, they represent the film very well, and complement the corresponding scenes.

Next, all our computer animated friends, including Davy Jones, with his forty-someodd tentacles. Very good, looks like real things, and the parts between Davy Jones and Tia Dalma were very good. Those scenes brought out some sort of human connection for our dear departed friend, and made a bit more sense out of the nonsense parts in the second movie. But I digress.

Camera shots were quite good, although in a few places different angles may have provided better views, such as with the section about the freeing of Calypso.

I feel like an idiot...the rest of this post is delayed until I can watch the movie with a notepad and pen in hand.

Pirates of the Caribbean III *SPOILERS* Part 6

Actor Critques

Perhaps slated to be the longest of any of my posts. The main people who will get the brunt of my critique:

1. 1.Willy Wonka
2. 2.Queen Amadala
3. 3.Leglolas Greenleaf

Oh...Oops. Let me try this again.

1. 1. Johnny Depp
2. 2. Kira Knightly
3. 3. More Orlando Bloom
4. 4. Bill Nighly
5. 5. Geoffrey Rush
6. 6. Everyone else

Now...Johnny Depp...As usual, he did a very good job acting, although Jack seems to be getting weirder and weirder. I did, however, like his different renditions of himself in Davy Jones' locker and cell. No special odities or funny stories to go here. Sorry, mates.

Kira Knightly...I had been afraid when I saw the second movie that Kira had lost the wonderful skill of portraying her character that she showed in the first movie. Thankfully, it reappears in the third, although she does have some moments when she lapses back, such as during the freeing of Calpso.

(More) Orlando Bloom...What can I say that won't drive certain persons nuts? Love the eyebrows and innocent looks....

Bill Nighly...Wonderful acting, and I still love the lip-pop noise. No matter how hard I or my friends try, we can't seem to duplicate it...Great facial, voice and everything else. I know that Jones was computer animated, but most of that actually came from Nighly's acting....

Geoffrey Rush...Dearly beloved, we are gathered here together in the sight of God and man....Very good, love it. I like the monkey, too!!! Eye rolls are wonderful.....Think I like the dot dots?

Everybody else...I like Tia Dalma's facial expressions, along with her accent. The cool thing about her accent is that it didn't vary, as some will. Calpso's exploding...was okay. The problem I had with that scene was I didn't really care for the score, and there were a few tech problems. Beautiful girl, what a goregous creature....wait....

Why am I writting about Pirates when I'm listening to Singing In The Rain?

Oh!!! The Commadore!!! Wonderful acting, you could see his thoughts on his face. Those cuffs were huge....

Ummmm....I like how the two English soliders reapeared in the last movie...I was sad when they didn't show up in the second one. I really thought it was funny when they turned into pirates.

"You may throw my hat."

"Now go get it."

Pirates of the Caribbean III *SPOILERS* Part 5

General Critiques, including discrepancies from previous movies.

This one isn't exactly the high point of my critique, but it will do.

Oh!!! And an announcement!!! Taking the place of my experience at the theater with this movie will be a very special post. It will still deal with POTC, but it will also be dedicated to a very special blog. Stay tuned for part eight. :)

Other than that...ah yes, critiques. Discrepancies:

1. 1) As previously mentioned, Elizabeth's hair changes.
2. 2) Will has an earring. Now, this especially irks me, because I don't really care for earrings, unless they are in very good taste on certain women. When anyone who does not fall in the category of a woman-with-earrings-of-very-good-taste gets an earring, I am hurt and offended. It just isn't right. Okay, I don't even wear the danglies.
3. 3) Barbossa's hat comes back. Jack had whacked it mostly to destruction in the first movie.
4. 4) Skirts on women appear and disappear. I think the same thing might have happened with some jewelry, but I'm not quite sure about it.

To note, some of my friends and I call this the "hat problem." This has a somewhat long story, so let me take you to another time and place that speaks of a man, like Jack, who had a very precious hat. This man, however, was an archeologist. His name was....drum roll, please....Indiana Jones!!!

In every fight that Indiana Jones gets into, his hat is (supposedly) never knocked off. When the films were made, lots of movies had hats getting knocked off repeatedly during fight scenes. So the producers decided that Indiana Jones' hat would not get knocked off.

So for some reason, when ever something appears and then disappears, we call it a hat.

So yah. There was a tiny bit of hats.

I was planning on sticking the following in Actor Critiques, but I'll stick it here because 1) This post isn't very long, and the Actor Critiques one will be, 2) I've been making fun of Orlando Bloom, so I want to even it out, and 3) I'm not really sure where this would belong anyways.

There is a scene where Will is on the Flying Dutchman, and is having tea with Lord Beckett. Please note for this scene that the boat is out of the middle of nowhere, and only because you've seen previous scenes do you know how he got here. Davy Jones doesn't know. But anyways, Beckett summons Davy Jones to the cabin, where he discovers dear old Will and Beckett having a nice tea together. Throughout the time in the cabin, Will mentions little odds and ends that are important to either Davy Jones of Beckett that they didn't know previously. Whenever he says something important to Davy Jones, Jones looks at him. Will, with a complete look of innocence on his face says,

"Oh...didn't Jack tell you that?"

Of course, Davy Jones didn't know that Jack wasn't in the locker anymore.

I know this wasn't the swellest post, but I would like to say one thing: For those of you who think Orlando Bloom can't act, hold your tongue until you see this scene.

Now tell me, could you do that? And make it look like you were just having a civilized cup of tea? And keep a straight face?

Chances are, you couldn't.

Sorry, S. Sorry, Boys.

I will now retire to my den and laugh evilly over the next post(s).

~Dresden

Pirates of the Caribbean III *SPOILERS* Part 4

Costumes/Aesthetic Elements

As I have now actually completed telling you MOST of the storyline, I have to leave something to make all four of you want to go see the movie...wait, I think you've already seen it...grrr....Well, to make you want to go see it again. That work?

Anyways, now that we have established what happens in the movie....

I must interrupt myself. I have been kicking myself since early this morning because I forgot to post something important!!!!! So, I edited and added it in, but I'll paste it here so that you don't have to go trawling for it:

It is somewhat hard to describe a battle scene, especially when you've only seen it once. One important part is that Will and Elizabeth get married in the middle of the fight.

Will: Elizabeth, will you marry me?
Elizabeth: I don’t think now is the best time!!!!

Will replies that it might be the only time. Then they both yell at Barbossa to marry them.

Barbossa: I’m kinda busy right now!!!
Will: Barbossa!!! Marry us!!!
Barbossa (Slices and jabs, fires a gun) Dearly beloved, we are gathered her today in the sight of God and men….

Ah yes...a wonderful sequence. Now, back to our feature presentation, as dear hol says on a regular basis.

Costumes: The costumes were very well done. The only problem I had with the costumes were 1) The skimpiness of some of Elizabeth's costumes and 2) sudden changes of costumes when clothing changes wouldn't have been easily accomplished, and shouldn't have happened.

1. 1) Skimpy clothing: several of Elizabeth's costumes go quite far up the thigh. This is somewhat of an annoyance, and detracts from her image overall. Lower the skirt six inches, and you'd keep the beauty and her good image.
2. 2) At several points costumes are suddenly changed when they shouldn't have been. An example is Elizabeth's costume when Sao Feng's boat is attacked. The costume is very unique and looks a certain way while Sao Feng dies. Elizabeth goes up to the main deck, and her costume goes through a change. When was that supposed to happen? Unless I terribly missed something, it wasn't.

Another point that illustrates both of the above is when Calypso is freed. Calypso's floor-length dress suddenly shortens several feet, and is at the point of great impropriety, especially when there are camera shots looking up at her.

I like the English soldier’s costumes.

Admiral Norrington has some HUGE cuffs on his coat jacket sleeves.

Some neat costume changes includes Will's when he changes into Captain Turner. His shirt color changes. And his hair seems to get an inch longer. And it gets curlier. And he is wearing a bandanna. And he has a huge scar on his chest. And for the first time, Orlando Bloom appears to be...manly? Well, anything is possible, I suppose. (Please note, T, that this last comment was instituted by a dear friend of mine and is not necessarily the opinion of the editor, as my binders can proudly attest. :P)

Aesthetic elements~Prosthetics...as usual, wonderful false teeth. Sarge claims that Jack Sparrow's teeth are whiter than before, but I'd have to watch the two movies side-by-side to be able to prove or disprove that. At one point, Barbossa's nails are no longer black, but then return to their previous condition in later shots. When the frostbitten toe gets broken off...ewwwww.

~Hair...wonderfully done. In this movie, Elizabeth's hair lends itself much better to her actions then it did in Dead Man's Chest. It has obviously been cut, but it doesn't go through different lengths, as in DMC. (To note real quick, the different lengths were 1) at the wedding--she had stray danglies that appear no where else in the movie--, 2)when she "barters" with Beckett and 3) everything after her escape.) Jack gets more hair when Barbossa disappears with his boat, Murtogg and Mullroy's (I think that is their names….) hair seems to grow a few inches when they become pirates. I really like Will's hair...it never seems to change except when it is absolutely necessary, unlike the previously mentioned peoples.

~Sets...Wonderful. No huge problems here...I didn't really catch any huge inconsistencies.

~Hmmm...I think that's it. You may want to check back, though. I may end up kicking myself again because I left something I thought was important out.

~Dresden

P.S. Thanks to Hol for getting me the music!!!!

Pirates of the Caribbean III *SPOILERS* Part 3

Thus have the adventurers come so far, yet are still in the locker. How will they get out? They're wondering that, too.

And they don't know the answer.

Jack is messing with the map, and finds a part that says "up is down." They have to get out of this middling place between life or death between sunset...If they don't, they will be forever doomed to sail between the seas of the living, and the seas of the dead. Jack gets them all running back and forth, trying to get the ship to flip over. Finally it does, the green flash appears (see movie for details about the flash) and they flip over again, landing right side up and in the seas of our world. So they return. Now that they are back in our world, they can continue to the meeting of the Pirate Lords, but not before Will betrays Jack and Barbossa, Sao Feng betrays Will, Beckett betrays Sao Feng and Jack betrays Beckett. Savvy?

Hope so. A lot more betraying goes on, as Jack also betrays Will, and Will turns on almost everybody. During this time, he has tea with Beckett and riles Davy Jones' feathers...or his tentacles...More about that later, in actor critiques.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth lands on Sao Feng's ship, Sao Feng gets killed, but before he dies, he makes Elizabeth captain, and tells her to take his place at the brethren court. He also gives her his "piece of eight." The ship is captured by Davy Jones, under the command of Admiral Norrington (Jack Davenport) as Sao Feng dies. Elizabeth chooses to stay with her crew instead of taking Norrington's cabin. That night, Norrington helps Elizabeth and her crew escape, and gets killed in the process. Elizabeth and her crew head out to Shipwreck Cove, where the meeting of the brethren is. A note about Shipwreck Cove:

Jack: Us pirates are not very inventive with names.
Gibbs: ?
Jack: Shipwreck Town in Shipwreck Cove on Shipwreck Island. You know, I used to know a pirate who had lost both arms, one leg and part of his eye.
Gibbs: What'd you call him?
Jack: Larry.

So the brethren court meet, act like a bunch of pirates, and elect Elizabeth Swann the Pirate Queen. She wins by one vote--Jack Sparrow's. She promptly goes out to parley with the enemy (the three from the East India Company: Beckett, Davy Jones and Will. The three from the pirates: Jack, Barbossa and Elizabeth.) Everyone (except for Jack) agree to trade Will and Jack, and get back to fighting. At this point, the pirates release Calypso...Details in the movie, quite complicated and doesn't have much to do with my critique.

Everybody fights.

This is a GREAT (yes, all caps and italicized...I'd underline, too, but I can't seem to get it to work.) battle scene, wonderful in just about every way. It is somewhat hard to describe a battle scene, especially when you've only seen it once. One important part is that Will and Elizabeth get married in the middle of the fight.

Will: Elizabeth, will you marry me?
Elizabeth: I don’t think now is the best time!!!!

Will replies that it might be the only time. Then they both yell at Barbossa to marry them.

Barbossa: I’m kinda busy right now!!!
Will: Barbossa!!! Marry us!!!
Barbossa (Slices and jabs, fires a gun) Dearly beloved, we are gathered her today in the sight of God and men….

Other than that, let it suffice that Jack goes and does a little bit more surfing in Switzerland (he's imagining multiple Jack Sparrows, again. "Nobody move!!! I dropped my brain."), then goes and battles Davy Jones for the chest and the key, is holding the heart in his hand, when Will gets stabbed, ironically enough with a sword that he made in the first movie, and is dieing. There is only one way to save Will.

He (Will) must stab the heart.

He stabs. Jack takes Elizabeth away in a makeshift parachute while Will's heart is cut out and put in the chest. (No, you do not see the heart getting cut out.) The Flying Dutchman disappears under the waves, and then resurfaces with a new Captain: Captain Turner. The Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman then both go across opposite sides of the E-something (Beckett's lead ship...I couldn't quite read the name of the ship) and destroy it. Beckett has failed, and I presume, is now dead.

The Pearl returns to Tortuga.

Barbossa makes off with the Pearl and...well, if you want to know what happens, watch the movie. I will leave you with one little tid-bit about the plotline, though.

Will can only set foot on land once every ten years now. He and Elizabeth spend their last day together for the next ten years. Make sure you wait until after the credits are over to see what happens ten years later.

~Dresden

Pirates of the Caribbean III *SPOILERS* Part 2

We left off with Will banging the really bad-bad guys over the head with a bar. Next, everyone escapes to...go find Jack. We now have Will, Elizabeth, Barbossa, Tia Dalma, the charts, a boat and a crew.

Let's cut to Jack, as he is more important to my post at this point in time. I'll leave you all to wonder how the previous peoples get to Davy Jones' locker. If you really want to know, watch the movie.

Anyways, Jack:

The scene opens with...a nose. A Very Large Nose. The nose sniffs, and continues to sniff, as it walks forward and then discovers a peanut. It is at this point that you can actually see something more than a nose, and discover that the afforementioned nose belongs to no other than...Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp). Sparrow takes a napkin, ties it around his neck and prepares to eat his peanut with a fork and knife when he is suddenly shot. You see that he is shot by Jack Sparrow, who simply says,

"My peanut."

It turns out that the crew is made up of Jack Sparrows. Jack is the Captain, First mate, coxswain, carpenter, sailor-before-the-mast, etc. Very confusing, and very weird.

Jack's gone mad.

Finally, Jack the Captain proclaims to all the other Jacks,

"Gentlemen, I wash my hands of this weirdness." And swings down off of the ship to land in...the salt flats of Utah. (Technically, this is supposed to be Davy Jones' locker....)

He walks around, observing his ship, and then sees a rock. He picks it up and throws it away from the ship and turns to find....

A rock.

He picks that rock up and throws it away from the ship. The rock lays where he threw it for a few moments, and then starts to wobble and crack. Meanwhile, Jack tries to pull his ship by sheer manpower, and, since he is the only man, finds he can't do it. But fulfilling the definition of insanity, he continues to do the same thing over and over again, expecting different results each time.

The rock finishes cracking open and becomes a granite crab. It slides over to a bunch of other rocks, taps its claws, and the other rocks begin to wobble and crack and turn into granite crabs.

Jack passes out from either exhaustion or from being beat by his ship. The crabs crawl over and start moving the ship. Jack wakes up to find that his ship is running away from him. So, he runs after it.

At this point, the ship that everyone who was in Singapore but is now in Davy Jones' locker comes ashore. I would like to mention here, I don't know why I didn't do this in the previous post, but the fight scene in Singapore is fantastic...especially what the monkey and the parrot do. Definately a must-see.

Their boat is destroyed, and they are all sopping wet. They start discussing how they are going to find Jack on this barren wasteland, when his ship comes "sailing" over the sand, with him on board. The ship sails from the sand into the sea, and Jack returns in a row boat. He thinks everyone is part of his imagination, and so they all take time bickering over that. It is in the middle of the bickering that Jack says one of my favorite lines from the trailer:

"Why should I sail with any of you? Four of you tried to kill me. One of you suceeded." Everyone looks at Elizabeth. Will looks hurt. She didn't tell him.

Finally, everyone ends up on board. After sailing for a while and some very interesting conversation (again, I won't tell you everything that happens in the movie....), the ship sails by those who have died at sea, those whom Davy Jones was supposed to sea to the afterlife. He has neglected that duty.

Here something very very sad happens. To cut really quickly to discussing actor's performances, this scene was done wonderfully by Kiera Knightly. It is at this point that Elizabeth discovers that Beckett killed her father and dumped his body overboard. Kiera does a wonderful job expressing the pain and emotions that any girl would feel if they found out like this that their Daddy had died.

"I'll give your love to your mother!!!!"

to be continued....

Pirates of the Caribbean III *SPOILERS* Part 1

I have seen it.

Yes, second true day in theaters, and I have attended, and am now ready to critique, Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End.

It was wonderful. I suppose one of the FCN staff will growl at me for saying that (we talked a bit earlier about this), but I am hoping his two companions will restrain him from hurting me, unless they decide to turn on me too. In that case, I appeal to you, my other friends, to hide me and protect me. :P

To be able to accurately present to you the wonder of this movie, I am going to divide this into eight parts. Please note that these parts only graze the top of the movie.

1. Part 1: Storyline/Plotline, Sub-Part 1
2. Part 2: Storyline/Plotline, Sub-Part 2
3. Part 3: Storyline/Plotline, Sub-Part 3
4. Part 4: Costumes/Asthetic Elements
5. Part 5: General Critiques, including discrepencies from previous movies
6. Part 6: Actor Critques
7. Part 7: Technological (including sound) Critiques
8. Part 8: What happened before (and after) I saw the movie

So to begin: Storyline/Plotline

The movie starts out with the hanging of probably near a hundred people from Port Royale (I didn't think their population was large enough to handle this!!!), all in the form of mass hangings. These people, comprised of men and women, young and old, have all been arrested for at any time in their life either being, having contact, aiding or setting eyes on a pirate. Those who aid the East India Company are miraculously exempted from this. The way this scene is put together is quite good, despite the morbidness of it. An official is reading a list of rights that have been "temporarily" removed. After he names a right, you see the hangman pullback the lever and about eight pairs of feet fall through. Now, LDers, pay attention here. Some very important rights were removed, show that the East India Company actually undervalued democracy. Lost rights included:

• Right to Assembly
• Right to Trial by Jury of Peers
• Right of Expressed Opinion
• Etc.

The scene continues like this until a small boy walks up to the gallows, preparing to be hung. He holds a small piece of silver in his hand (a piece of eight) and, while looking at it and turning it, begins to sing. The other doomed prisoners hear the song and begin to sing with him. (The song is NOT Yo-ho, yo-ho a pirate's life for me.)

In the next scene, we meet a young caucasian woman paddling a boat and softly singing the same song. She is in Singapore, and sings softly as she paddles past both locals and soldiers from the East India Company. She docks her boat and is stopped by three locals, who tell her that it is very bad for her to be singing that song, especially since she is a woman, a caucasian, and alone. Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) then suddenly appears, and says that she isn't alone. The woman, if you haven't guessed, is Elizabeth (Kiera Knightly). The three locals then escort Elizabeth and Barbossa into the Bathouse, where Sao Feng awaits them. But before they can enter, they have to give up all their weapons. Elizabeth has an interesting aray, and and interesting way of giving them out. Some of this is quite funny. However, I will leave you to your imagination, or to see the movie, on this point.

In the bathouse, it is discovered that Will (Orlando Bloom) has been caught trying to steal a certain map to Davy Jones' (Bill Nighly) locker. Barbossa and Elizabeth deny knowing Will, and Will almost gets killed. Then everyone turns on Barbossa and Elizabeth, but their good pals throw some weapons up through the cracks in the floor and the two are instantly armed. Suddenly, the East India Trading Companie's Soldiers burst in, and everybody starts fighting them, since they are the real bad guys. Will, who had his hands tied to a bar, does a wonderful job of fighting using the bar with his hands tied to it, and an even better job of fighting once someone cuts the ropes that tie his hands to it.

Everyone escapes and heads out to find Jack.

More on that, later.