Just wanted to point out that I agree fully with randwill and Trunk. Leaving the 8:25pm showing, we passed the line for the midnight show on the way out, and the sheep metaphor jumped into my mind.
But randwill, you may not realize this but the ratio of bad and good movies made each year has never really changed; you’re lamenting a past that never existed. Also, as a person who appreciates good movies, you should be forever thankful to the mass-produced lowest common denominator fare, since those are what allow the studios to take a chance on the better stuff.
One single tent-pole franchise frees a studio financially to take a shot on ten high-risk limited-appeal projects.
I saw it last night. Didn’t have to wait in line to buy the tickets because I was in the area early afternoon and picked them up then. Waited in line to get in the theater about 20 minutes, got fairly good seats before it filled up and even snuck in my own Whoppers.
I liked it. Yes, it was a bit convoluted, but I had no trouble following it. I didn’t care for the ending so much, but hey, what can you do?
Anyway, my 10 year old son thought it was awesome.
Re-reading this today raises a question in my mind. Given that the films I listed as recommended are all so different from each other, what do you mean by this?
It sounds hypocritical regardless of your motivation for going: “As I left the movie, I saw sheep going in to watch it.” If they’re sheep, what does that make you? And if you have some legitimate non-sheep reason for going, why can’t they? It reads like you’re condemning people (or looking down on them) for something you yourself did as well. That lack of self-awareness is what made it funny.
In other words, they’ve already seen 2/3rd’s of the entire story. And determined they liked it enough that they want to see the final 1/3rd.
Hope that helps your lack of understanding: They’re not anticipating liking this film because of “marketing”, they’re basing their likelihood of liking this film because they liked the first two installments of the series.
Are you a victim of marketing because you want to finish the final 300 pages in a 900 page novel or (to use a better analogy) if you wanted to read the third LOTR if you liked the first two books? :rolleyes:
It’s like exiting McDonald’s after eating there and commenting on all the fools going in to eat their slop. It’s not that hard to see why the comment is sorta funny. I gather that you can’t see it, which is okay. Moving on. . . .
I’m going to see the 2 p.m. show today. I’m kinda worried. I loved the first movie; I was conflicted about the second (by which I mean I didn’t really like but wished I had); and now this one looks to be longer, less coherent, and more manic. I hope it’s better than I fear it is.
Sadly, you should probably be worried. As I posted upthread, I didn’t like the second one when seeing it in the theater. Truth be told, I didn’t even really like the first one when seeing it for the first time on HBO.
But my sister, the uber-geek that she is, made it a point to catch both PotC 2 & 3 on opening night, similarly to how she did for all three Star Wars prequels. While I am/was lukewarm on all six movies, (to put it kindly,) it’s hard to make time to spend alone with sis since she has a rugrat to look after. So I go to these openings with her, leaving the brother-in-law to fend for the kid.
Putting aside the matter of your and EJsGirl’s snarkiness, sis pretty much hated PotC 3, while I found it enjoyable enough. Most of my liking was simply a matter of it meeting my expectations: crappy, campy fun. It really is overwrought and pointless, but that’s exactly what I expected, so I was able to accept it for what it was.
Sis, however? Wow. She loved the first one to death, and is a staunch defender of the second, but she went on and on about what she didn’t like in the third one on the ride home. Her biggest complaint was that it was too dark; all the light humor of the first movie has been sucked out of it and replaced with, well, nothing, really.
I almost considered that a plus, in that most of the light humor in the second movie was in the form of lame callbacks to the first movie shoehorned in regardless of how out of place they were. The lack of that technique in the third movie is a welcome change.
The ultimate embodiment of the loss of light humor can be summed up by
In summary, if you’re a big fan of PotC and are dying to see the third one, you’re probably in for a big letdown. If, however, you don’t particularly like the franchise, but are going because a loved one is dying to see it, you’ll probably have a decent time.
Actually, I disagree with you assessment – I (and the rest of my family) loved PotC III – not despite the fact that it was, in your words,
but because of these qualities. It was, in essence, a lampoon of itself, and (ISTM) purposefully so. It was also a lampoon of a lot of “Action” genre mainstays, the scene Where Will and Elizabeth are “married” in the midst of one of the craziest, weirdest, campiest “fight scenes” I have ever seen comes to mind as spoofing similar scenes where the protagonist(s) seek(s) some sort of “closure” right in the middle of a climactic scene, yet unrelated to it.
I really liked the first one; I really didn’t like the second one. The only thing about the truly awful PC2 that made me think PC3 would be better was Barbarosa’s reappearance at the end.
I liked PC3. It wasn’t the acme of cinematic artistry, but it was pretty well done for what it was intended to be (an effects-heavy “blockbuster” that moves along quickly and that has a plot that won’t withstand heavy scrutiny). I was worried about the length but I didn’t look at my watch once. I thought it refrained from crossing over the “this is just completely stupid” line that PC2 went way over (in the “humans in a hamster ball” scene, for example). I liked the ending, the fact that it didn’t tie things up neatly with a bow, and I did think the special effects were pretty darn special. So yeah, worth the price of a matinee for me. For the third in a series, I thought it was way better and more coherent than Spiderman 3, which I was really disappointed by.
I actually agree with Ellis Dee for the most part (other than about the first movie), but I would rather say that if you loved the *second *movie to death you will probably not like this one.
Let me explain: I love the first movie, and I think it’s the greatest pirate movie EVER (followed closely by “The Crimson Pirate”, btw). Now I hated the second one, because I thought it completely coasted on the first one’s coattails, and where the first one was surprisingly light and campy fun, the second one beat you to death with anvillicious jokes (ARE YOU LAUGHING ABOUT THE RUM JOKE YET??? LETS MAKE IT A THIRD TIME).
Thus, for me, I liked the fact that the third one dialled it down a notch, and for all its disjointedness, had fun parts that stood all by themselves, and occasionally scenes of brilliance (like the one Noone Special mentioned in the spoiler above). There were drawn-out parts, and from my perspective I wouldn’t call it a great movie, but it was enjoyable.
However, if you loved the more thigh-slapping approach of part two, chances are high you will be sorely disappointed by the comparative lack of camp - e.g. most people I knew who hated the third movie complained that all the “running gags” were missing.
Can you spoil it for me? I, in my infinite wisdom, left before the credits were started. Doesn’t help that a fire alarm got pulled just at that moment too.
After the credits, you see Elizabeth and a little boy – ten years old, one assumes – in a meadow on a cliff overlooking the sea, looking out to see, obviously waiting. Then you see Will Turner on the ship as it sails in to meet them. Big smiles all around.
A fire alarm is one thing, but this is another little pet peeve of mine. Dummies who go running out of the theater the micro-second the credits appear. What, do they think they’re going to win something for being out first? In many cases they miss a “credit cookie”, or extra scene tacked onto the end. In one case, at least, “Dawn of the Dead” (2004), the movie continued through the credits to the end. The people who jumped up when the credits started missed seeing the fate of the remaining characters. If your bladder can stand it, you should never leave until the screen goes dark.
