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 a crappy looking movie – is it Cinematographer Dariusz Wolski’s fault or was he just taking orders from Director Rob Marshall? If I have to spend 2 ½ hours in this world, can they at least make it watchable?”
This was the question that I asked in my original review of the movie. Now that it’s on 3D Blu-ray does it still look terrible?
Video Quality, Presentation and Audio
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 Video Quality of the 3D Blu-ray is sharper and clearer at home than it was in the theater, but the entire thing still looks drab, the saving grace of this transfer is that everything looks a lot clearer and when I originally said that I couldn’t imagine a scenario where the 3D would make this mess of a movie look better, I’ll have to eat my words a tiny bit. The 3D transfer looks great. There are no jaggies, everything looks like it is in their proper aspect ratios. I watched it with both Passive and Active technology and there is no noticeable difference. Again Active look a little richer than passive and the 3D isn’t as in your face.
The 7.1 DTS audio track sounds great on my “artificial” surround sound television. I do not have full surround so cannot comment on that. But if it sounds this good in 2D surround, I would assume full 7.1 would be just as good. I still love the Hans Zimmer’s amazing soundtrack.
The onscreen navigation is again very clean, loads fast and is easy to use. What’s going on did Disney fire the old navigation guy? Where are my overly produced, confusing flash heavy menus? The menu scheme here is simple and elegant.
This package comes spread out over 5 discs – 3D Blu-ray, Blu-ray, Bonus Disk, DVD and Digital File disk which would get annoying real quick because you almost have to watch at least 4 of these disks to get the “full” experience (see my comments in the extras section to see what I mean).
There are only two sneak peaks (on the 3D Disk) before this one – John Carter of Mars and Cars 2, so the movie starts fairly quick.
Movie Review
When 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 has 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). Is Bruckheimer capable of, you know, EDITING?
Extras
All I need to say about the Extras is that this is another movie that uses Disney’s amazing Second Screen Technology that allows you to watch all the extras in Synch with the movie on your iPad/Tablet/Computer device (not sure if it’s available for Android). I’ve said numerous times how much I love this concept. There are no extras on the 3D Blu-ray Disk and you need to use the regular Blu-ray to use the Second Screen. All of the additional bonus material is contained on an additional Blu-ray disc. So this means you have to use 3 Disks to get the full experience – not counting the 4th Disney File transfer disk.
Bonus materials include a full-length 40-minute documentary, a bunch of behind the scenes featurettes – which seem redundant to the full documentary, five deleted extended scenes, and five cute Lego shorts.
Conclusion
I’m conflicted, I still hate this movie, but it works so much “better” on Blu-ray than it did in the theater. It could be reference quality work if Bruckheimer didn’t do such a lousy job with the cinematography, casting, story – you know, the movie. I will admit that this transfer looks a million times better than it did in the theater. Fans of the movie will not be disappointed with this set, the rest of us? Eh. Disney Home Video did excellent job putting this together.
Grades
- Movie – D
- Audio/Video/Presentation – B
- Extras – A
Final Overall Grade C
EM Review by
Michelle Alexandria
Originally Posted 11/01/2011