I’m really getting tired of spending my hard earned money on movies that are shot entirely with a color pallet that only includes different shades of gray and black. I won’t ask why a sequel to Pirates of the Caribbean was needed or wanted. There are many stories you can tell in this weird and wacky world that they made. It’s just not a story that I’ve ever particularly cared about and frankly, I CAN’T STAND Captain Jack Sparrow the iconic character that Johnny Depp created and everyone, but me apparently, loves. I don’t know who to blame for such an awful looking movie – is it Cinematographer Dariusz Wolski’s fault or was he just taking orders from Director Rob Marshall? Or could it have been just a bad projection? If I have to spend 2 ½ hours in this world, can they at least make it watchable?”
The fact that the movie is so dark that you can barely see what’s going on has nothing to do with the Projector. It’s an alarming trend in recent releases. Ever since last year’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows movie it seems like the color pallet in a lot of 3D related films have become so dark that the worlds being portrayed have become completely drab looking. Look at the recently released Priest for another example of a movie shot so dark you can barely see a damn thing. The trailers for Green Lantern also look like that’s going to be an incredibly dark movie as well.
When the Captain Jack and company finally reach The Fountain of Youth, Penélope Cruz (Why does this woman even have a career?) utters, “It’s beautiful,” I sat there thinking, is she smoking weed? The fountain looked like about as bland and lifeless as a supposedly “green” forest could possibly look. A movie that has a $100 million + budget should at least be able to give viewers a glorious (not even magical) looking forest. Not some lifeless thing where everything looked fake as heck.
That’s the problem with the entire Pirates franchise, I’ve never understood how it became so popular in the first place, I didn’t particularly like the first one, walked out of the second, but really loved, LOVED the third installment. But the world Bruckheimer and company have created always struck me as limp and lifeless. Not a world I would want to visit.
Sure Depp’s Sparrow is fun to watch in small doses, which is why the 2nd movie failed (for me), I just couldn’t take that long scene where he was on the beach and the 3rd movie worked because he wasn’t the focal point of every scene. In On Stranger Tides it’s ALL about Sparrow and he is in almost every scene in this movie. I wanted to smack Angelica (Penélope Cruz), Sparrow’s scorned lover who happened to be the daughter of the infamous Blackbeard (Ian McShane). There’s some dumb subplot with a Mermaid and some Missionary who was spared simply because he thought Blackbeard’s soul could be saved.
This movie is 2 ½ hours of a bunch of useless side stories that didn’t need to be there and action scenes that went on 5 minutes too long (every time). The one thing I still love about Pirates is Hans Zimmer’s amazing and rousing score. I’m glad I watched the 2D version (which was hard to find!), because I can’t imagine any scenario where the 3D would have improved this movie.
Final Grade D
EM Review by
Michelle Alexandria
Originally Posted 05/22/2011
No, you’re definitely not the only one who feels left out on the love for this franchise. I can’t stand it either, and your review summed it up perfectly.