Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)

Some publicity pics can be seen at http://www.aintitcool.com/node/31212

Keith Richards is confirmed to appear in the film (CES).

Yes, he is. In fact, I saw a leaked production photo of Depp and Richards in full costume last week. My first reaction was, "My God! Keith Richards is wearing such unrealistic prosthetic makeup that he looks like an animatronic pirate from the ride!". Then I looked up some other pictures and discovered that he wasn't wearing any makeup.

Scary

Think we'll see a teaser trailer during the Superbowl?

I have high hopes for this one eventhough I didn't care for Dead's Man Chest. I LOVED Curse of the Black Pearl. LOVED it...one of my faves. An extremely charming cast and usually good direction.

Hope the final installment is a gem.

I LOVE the new promo/character posters. I think they look fantastic. I can't wait for this movie!

I too am hoping that this will be a step up from Dead Man's Chest.

I know that I'm probably in the minority, but I truly hated that film. The first one remains one of the most fun films I've seen in a while though, so I'm really hoping that I'll like the next one.

DMC was a huge disappointment. There were some entertaining bits - the fight on the wheel, for example, but I didn't like any of Davy Jones' crew, or anything of the kraken but the first ship take-down. (Correction, I did like the two ex-pirates arguing about the pronunciation of the word...)

Leo

The trailer was great for DMC though

Tim, Matt, Leo, mostly agree. Although I did not hate DMC, it certainly was not up to par with COTBP. Just didn't have the same fun feeling throughout. And Barbosa was a much more interesting villian than Davy Jones & his crew. Since he will be back in AWE, along with Chow-Yun Fat, hopefully this will be recapture all the fun of Black Pearl.

I, too, was very disappointed in DMC and really hope that AWE approaches the quality of the first movie.

This is the first place I've seen where this many people have shared my general feelings toward DMC.

I felt like Jack was unlikable to the nines in number 2, and none of the stories were all that compelling or remotely fun.

But I agree with Master Qui Gon in saying that hopefully Geoffrey Rush's return will spruce up the next installment. As it stands, the only thing I liked about number 2 was his 10 second cameo at the end.

I can't understand the hate for DMC, especially if one liked the first one. It seemed to me the only logical follow up. The tone, the characters and the story all stayed true to the original. The same way Empire was to Star Wars... Dead Man's Chest was to Curse of the Black Pearl.

I thought it was way too bloated and excessive. I'm usually not one to complain about long movies but it felt way too long. I didn't care for the characters this time out- they made pretty much everyone unlikeable, particularly Sparrow who was such an outright bastard (compared to the likable bastard who deep down was a good person in the first one) that I didn't buy everybody's little "we have to rescue Jack" turn at the end.

I just think back to before CotBP's release- I think most people expected the movie to be a huge mess but it turned out to be far better than we expected. DMC, to me, was what I feared CotBP would end up like.

I can agree with the end. I don't understand the sudden change of heart with everyone. But I think it had more to do with everybody's own selfish reasons.

As for Jack... was the same old Jack from the first film. All of his actions seemed in lieu with his character that we saw in the first film. Save his own ass first. Pirate.

I think expectation were so low for the original film, that people were so surprised by it and Johnny Depp's performance that the bad things were forgotten about. It was a fun film but by no means a great one, in my opinion of course.

With the second film, there were high expectations from the get go with what I think everyone REMEMBERED about the first film, all the good things. If you actually watch both back to back, they're pretty much in line with each other. All the complaints I've heard against the second film can be used against the first one as well including the length and Jack Sparrow.

I did this exact thing. I watched CotBP again the evening I watched DMC and enjoyed it far more than it's sequel. I did think CotBP felt maybe a tad too long on my initial viewing but I thought DMC felt significantly longer than it's predecessor even though the actual runtime difference was less than 10 minutes or something like that.

I can't really respond to your other points, though, because I haven't watched DMC since opening day and really don't remember a lot of the details. I did write up my thoughts a bit more thoroughly in the impressions thread, including why I though Jack was worse this time around but I can't remember the details now.

I don't really agree. I just watched Black Pearl recently, fully aware of its positive reputation, and I enjoyed it immensely. We're talking "instant all-time fave" material. I didn't like the sequel nearly as much, though I did enjoy it. I think the key difference between the two for me was Geoffrey Rush. He was definitely a scene-stealer in the original, which is a tough thing to do against Depp's Jack Sparrow. The moment he walked down the stairs, the reaction seemed to be, "So *that's* what's been missing from this movie!" I also found the idea of an undead crew easier to swallow than these cursed fish people, or whatever the hell they were.

I thought the direction of some of the action sequences veered a little too much towards the worst aspects of Spielberg. I'm not sure I can articulate this, but I find it harder and harder to watch the Indiana Jones movies because of the idiotic "drag out the suspense/have characters fumble their way to victory" moments. An example of the former would be the opening of Temple, where the vial and diamonds keep getting kicked around. It's so telegraphed and predictable. "Okay, it's going to be kicked again. Yep, there's some ice to make it harder to find the diamonds." An example of the latter would be when Indy puts Marion in the cockpit, and she performs a chain of accidental actions that lead to her saving Indy (ripped off by Lucas for Phantom Menace, unfortunately). Taken as individual moments, these might be okay, but they are sprinkled throughout. Now, I've only watched Black Pearl once, and there might have been something like this, but I don't remember it. I noticed a few in Dead Man's, like the ludicrous "food fight" sequence when Jack was strapped to the spit, and the overlong fight atop the runaway water wheel. Better, for me, would have been a short fight on the rolling wheel to give us the idea, and then have it fall over and the fight continue in some creative new way. As it is, it not only stretched credulity, but served as a kind of echo of the bone cage sequence earlier in the film.

All that said, I liked the movie, but I hope the next one blows it away. With Geoffrey Rush in the mix, there's a great deal of hope.

I'm in the camp that saw the sequel as bloated but didn't see the first film as such. But I didn't hate it because of this. It had a terrible opening set of scenes (bad screenwriting, which if you watch the extras you realize the film was being written even during production, and I don't mean rewrites).

It also stuck in too many things. Just because its a cool idea doesn't mean it fits for the film. Couch the idea and use it for another screenplay instead. To me that suggests more last minute filmmaking in which the overall vision isn't able to be considered before release.


But I do love the characters and setting, so I'm looking forward to the 3rd film and can still enjoy the 2nd one.


I really agree with everything Greh S H just said as well, even regarding Temple. That's one of Steven's flaws at times, especially with his less inspired efforts. I even cringe a bit at the "finding the planes in the desert" scene from CE3K's opening, sometimes his manipulation just gets too obvious.

This is also why Raiders blows Temple away by miles.

I really enjoyed Jones' crew...just for the crazy visuals. I thought the film was decent, and I eagerly await AWE. I was missing some of the spark TBP had, though. Still, not a bad film at all. Just dense, dense, dense, without a lot there

I have the feeling this will be one of those trillogies in which I own the 1st and 3rd installments, and pass on the movie in the middle.