While I was in Jakarta, Ronan and I went to see Pirates 3 at the cinema. First of all, the cinema was really nice with roomy seats and it was almost empty which allowed us to pick out good seats and not be bothered by my usual peeve of people sitting in front of me.
Well, not that it is a problem in Asia as I appear TALL when there! 
Picking up where the previous movie left off, Pirates 3 fits the bill as a bit of mindless entertainment with great visuals and an uncomplicated storyline of adventure, love and betrayal.
Pirates 3 opens with a hanging and a coin, similar enough to the first two to give an overall tone.
Spoilers within…
Visuals
The images of this one are much more pleasing than the second one (could someone erase that horrible Kracken image from my mind?) and much in the keeping of the first one.
Costumes were great and there were some interesting, if impractical ones for Elizabeth Swann that delighted me. There’s definitely some great costume design going on there.
Storyline
Predictably enough, the storyline was made coherent with the previous offering and gave us some more information concerning the whole Pirates background.
The Singapore scenes were made that much more funny by my recent visit to Singapore.
The whole wheels-within-wheels concept around the various deals brokered by all the characters are fun and in keeping with the pirates’ habits over the past two movies.
The Brethren Court contained elements of all major maritime cultures, grossely parodied to the point of hilarity (as usual, the French one was pretty good and true to the spirit of those people).
One moment that I found particularly poignant was the death of James Norrington. Made despicable in the first movie, loveable decrepit in the second before falling back into the despicable bucket, his character is absolutely made heroic in this one.
The darker tone was definitely set by the death of Elizabeth’s father, not shown on screen but made painfully evident by his passing into the darkness when they cross back into the world of the living.
I had not forseen what would happen with Will (won’t spoil the movie anymore than it is already) but it made for an emotional moment. And as Ronan so eloquently put it “You know it’s going to end badly when the lead couple is happy before the ending”.
Strangely enough for a Disney movie, it does seem to end on a bittersweet note.
We missed the post-credits ending, as we left during credits…
Overall, good fun was had at the movie and a pretty decent way to spend the afternoon.
The movie theater was pretty cool, with a game arcade and the Silver Surfer 3D poster thingie in the lobby. One thing I regret not picturing is the carpet, embroidered with the name of a bunch of “popular” movies of the past decade.
My review is totally shoddy of course, so you’ll have to go and see for yourself.
June 26th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Hi !
I’ve seen the post-credits ending ^____^. We have friends who love to watch ALL the credits, even if it’s quite boring most of the time. For once it was a good thing and this ending close the trilogy really well. I could tell you if you want ^_^… but I can’t spoil everyone reading your blog, can I ?
[there’s allthough something strange with this ending I’l the only one to have noticed… or so my friends tell me.]
July 1st, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Oh, I read the reviews but I didn’t see it so I’m waiting for it to come out on DVD so that I can see it for myself. You’ll have to tell me about the ending and what you saw.