I'm surprised our resident Hollywood insider, Jack Skeleton, has yet to bless us with his advance critique.

Disney might be putting the kibosh on advance reviews, since they know they'll a ton of matter without them, so why run the risk of negative advance buzz (not saying they're expecting negative advance buzz, but with all the naysayers on the internet running around, why chance it?).

Reviews are embargoed until Friday.

I saw it. It was good....
Whoops, I take that back

I actually feel exactly the same way as RichC2 does.
DMC looked, sounded and acted good, but it kinda got lost in itself. I really didn't know who was talking about what half the time and that really lowered the enjoyment level. Might watch it again to see if things are easier to grasp.
Not that I'm a simple minded person, but when I go to see movies like these I check my brain at the door so I don't pick at the silly stuff. Did the same with Spiderman 3 and I really enjoyed that. It had most of the theatre laughing.

In terms of the complicated plots, I read the Bruckheimer intends for people to get more of it on repeat viewings. That actually might work, as with the second one I had to view it a second time before I actually thought it was good. Same with my parents, who said the second time it actually came across as a better movie.

I guess Bruckheimer is trying to build in some legs. Could work if the movie lives up to expectations.

I caught most everything the first time through and managed to verify my dislike of the movie the second time through. It isn't horrible, just boring. I'll probably end up seeing At World's End at some point in time, but I'm not exactly hyped for it.

However, it may be a good sign. Spider-man had a great second movie and a bad third, Shrek had a decent second movie and a horrible third, The Matrix had a decent second movie and a horrendous third... Pirates may break the curse by getting the mediocre out of the way.

I saw Bruckheimer on Carson Daly (It was late and I was bored, I swear!), the one movie he really regrets not producing? Little Miss Sunshine.

I don't get the hate for DMC either. I don't recall being confused by it at any point during the movie.

Jack wanted it so he could "pay off" his debt to Davey Jones
Will wanted it so he could free his dad from servitude to Davey Jones
Norrington wanted it so he could get his commission/life back
Beckett wanted it so he could control the sea's trade routes
Elizabeth left Jack on the Pearl because she knew the Kraken was after Jack

And I can't wait to see At World's End. That last trailer had me pumped.

No way was I confused with or by DMC. Just bored to tears. It was such a boring mess. But that's not stopping me from seeing the third. The first was so good. I pray this next one has half of it charm and excitement.

I'm looking forwrad to this as well.

I thought the first was a little long, meandered through the story and was a little boring. On subsequent viewings I learned to like it a lot more.

I felt part two was a tad darker, a little too long, and was bloated by a few F/X that just didn't work (the Kraken). The cannibal island was completely pointless and could have been cut but I didn't mind cause that whole sequence was a lot of fun, IMO.

I'm likely to walk out of part 3 a bit confused, (I'll end up buying the DVD I'm sure, so subsequent viewings will clear things up) I'm happy they're not simplifying it for the kiddies, I'm sure it'll be a bit too long, but we've all come to expect that from POTC flicks. I'm personally looking forward to an even darker tone. I'm glad they're not dumbing it down.

Of course this is all speculation, it may be a 3 hour steaming pile...but that's par for the course. It's not a Summer movie if you don't walk in expecting greatness only to walk out pissed off about how bad it sucked.

A buddy of mine whose typically pretty skeptical of movies saw this and said it was good.

Liked the first two and will be seeing the third on Friday!

me too I wish the Uptown had a DLP system - 'At the World's End' would seriousily rock!!

Very important question: Did your buddy like #2?

Agree with all of this. Dead Man's Chest just felt empty and calculated to me, where the first one felt alive and spirited.

yet oddly I thought the second movie was more action packed ... I loved the Kraken scenes and fx of Davey Jones (and Bill Nighy for that matter).

The big question is: How much of a role does Keith Richards play?

He seemed to like it overall.

I can only hope it's a small cameo role...very small.

I read an interview with Johnny Depp where he says Richards was only on set for a day. Hopefully it's just one scene.

Somehow the almost 3 hour run time is a bit of a turn off. For me these films should be clocking in at about the 2 hour mark. The first two movies felt a bit bloated and could have worked better with a few cuts here and there. I have a feeling AWE might suffer from this as well. I'm hardly going out on a limb there.

My understanding is that the Richards cameo is very brief, probably meaning one scene.

This movie has a built in audience for opening weekend, regardless of its runtime. Even the smallest theaters I know of have it on at least two screens. The multiplexes seem to have the same deal as Spidey where someone can get a showing every half hour or so for the first week.
The weekend after is where it has to carry itself. For some reason a three hour runtime can scare people away, but one that is fifteen minutes to a half hour shy does not.

I really hope so. I mean, why would anyone want Keith Richards in their movie at all?

I've got my tickets for the Thursday night showing on DLP. Pre-Friday night openings I've always liked since it means I won't be encountering bored teenagers (only fans), and I'll be home by midnight, which isn't bad.

Rolling Stone review. Yeah, I know it's only Peter Travers. But he makes some legitimate points.

The good news first: Keith Richards totally rocks it playing pirate daddy to Johnny Depp’s Capt. Jack Sparrow. The deep rumble of his voice and those hooded eyes that narrowly open like the creaky gates of hell make him what the rest of this three-peat is not: authentically scary. It’s fun to see Richards swagger, even sitting down. Watch him stage a macabre reunion for Jack and his dear old mum. Don’t worry, I won’t reveal her secret.


So what’s the bad news? Richards is onscreen for barely two minutes. The rest of At World’s End left me at wit’s end wading through nearly three hours of punishing exposition, endless blather (pirates take meetings — who knew?), an overload of digital effects and shameless setups for Pirates 4. I ask you people: Even if you like Depp (and who doesn’t?), do you understand one bloody thing that’s going on in this Pirates trilogy? The problem, I think, is that director Gore Verbinski and screenwriters Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio focus on Will Turner, played by the aggressively bland Orlando Bloom, and his quest to find a personality. Kidding. Will wants to rescue his father (Stellan Skarsgard) from the tentacles of Davy Jones, a talking CGI fish with the luck to be voiced by the great Bill Nighy. Will still can’t find the balls to make a move on Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley, working her skinny butt off trying to get a rise out of this putz), who spends her time trying to get Chow Yun-Fat, as the pirate lord of Singapore, to help save Jack. Confused? You should be, since Jack (why doesn’t someone just tell him he’s gay?) was swallowed whole by the Kraken in Pirates 2, but he steps lively here. He’s trapped in Davy Jones’ Locker, which resembles a hallucination out of Being John Malkovich, with multiple Jacks jabbering at each other.

I applaud the Oscar nomination Depp received for the first Pirates, but the third chapter proves that there can indeed be too much of a good thing. Pirates 3 raises everything from the dead, except inspiration. A huge set piece in which a pirate ship pulls a Poseidon and turns upside down must have cost millions and still looks tacky. And until a wow of a climactic sea battle, the story plods along like a PBS special on the founding pirate fathers. Happily, Geoffrey Rush (absent from Pirates 2) encores his “arrghs” as Barbossa and shows how nostril-flaring acting should be done. This dude can steal scenes from a monkey, and does. At least Rush and Depp capture the pirate ethos that a lost boy can get older but stay immature forever. I haven’t mentioned the heart cut out of Davy’s chest. No reason. I just don’t care. Being buried in an avalanche of cliches and incoherence will do that to a guy. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer does deserve a shoutout: It takes a kind of genius to sucker audiences into repeatedly buying the same party tricks. Know what? There really is no legit way to review Pirates 3. It’s not a movie at all, it’s a business proposition.

Considering this is the man who called Hannibal better than Silence of the Lambs, I'm actually happy he didn't like it. If he did, it would have guaranteed to be crap. Now it's got the hope of being good.