criterionforum.org

First trailer is up.

Chow Yun-Fat looks awesome, and all of the action setpieces, regardless of the amount of CG, look really fun. I can't wait to see this.

Chow looks dubbed or extensively coached and, um, fat. One of the most overrated actors ever.

The rest looks great. I love this show.

Ugh, the first film was okay but the second was pure torture. A needlessly convoluted script, coupled with terrible CGI and burdensome running time made it a trial to sit through even with Depp's (as usual) great performance.

Maybe I'll try catch this one day on cable to see Keith Richards but that's about it.

Antoine Doinel wrote:Ugh, the first film was okay but the second was pure torture. A needlessly convoluted script, coupled with terrible CGI and burdensome running time made it a trial to sit through even with Depp's (as usual) great performance.

Maybe I'll try catch this one day on cable to see Keith Richards but that's about it.

Bill Nighy's face (the octopus one, not his real-life one) is the pinnacle of CGI, but the Kraken was pretty poor. Was it rushed?

The rest I agree 100% with. And I'll raise you a charisma free Orlando Bloom performance.

Napoleon wrote:The rest I agree 100% with. And I'll raise you a charisma free Orlando Bloom performance.

Not to mention zero chemistry between him a Keira Knightly. The blandest couple in cinema!

That being said, Depp was awesome with he and Nighy making it bearable. Altho, for me, the dark horse of the second one was the very entertaining Jack Davenport (Coupling!) who walked away with some of the best lines (and line deliveries) and seemed to be the only character with any kind of significant arc.

However, this trailer certainly looks fun... loads of eye-popping CGI, Chow, Geoffrey Rush back in the fold... huzzah.

I'm not a big CGI fan, but I don't see how you can say the special effects are shite. Just compare them to the godawful King Kong, where you are CONSTANTLY being taken out of the action by the obvious CGI. The Bronto run in particular was laughable. In PotC that does not happen (at least not to me)--they have created a believable alternative world. And who cares if there is no chemo between Bloom and KK--part of the POINT is that her real soul mate is Johnny.

For me, during the last film, everything on Davy Jones' boat I felt was rendered very poorly and at times even Davy Jones himself.

Also, I think they revised the scripts for the subsequent sequels to increase the interaction between Knightley and Depp after it became apparent after the first one that the onscreen chemistry between Bloom and Knightley was non-existent and that audiences loved Depp.

Well, I do keep hoping that Bloom gets killed off. He has never been good in anything. He was occasionally tolerable in LotR.

First film was an hour too long, but at least it had the novelty of Depp's performance. Even he couldn't save the sequel, which was utterly wretched.

I found both of these entertaining enough in a mainstream kind of way and pretty much forgot about them within 5 minutes of leaving the cinema.
I haven't bothered to pick holes in plot/ acting/ cgi etc as...well, what's the point? They're popcorn movies and unlike, say, the Matrix films, they don't pretend otherwise.

That being said, I find the fact that the sequel is the third most successful film of ALL time, raking in over $1 billion, totally confusing...

jt wrote:That being said, I find the fact that the sequel is the third most successful film of ALL time, raking in over $1 billion, totally confusing...

I betcha this third installment will beat it.

Yeah, I suppose the lack of chemistry between Bloom and Knightly is kinda the point but I get the feeling that they will eventually end up together by the end of the third one. Depp's character is too much of a comedic creation to be saddled with a love interest.

At any rate, I'm really looking forward to Keith Richard's cameo.

jt wrote:That being said, I find the fact that the sequel is the third most successful film of ALL time, raking in over $1 billion, totally confusing...

Meet the Fockers is the highest-grossing comedy of all time. That's infinitely more depressing.

this list makes a lot more sense.

I wonder if there will ever be another film that can knock Titanic out of its top spot for all time-worldwide. but with digital piracy, I doubt it.

A lot of the films in that list are crap. Crappier than PotC, I say.

Personally, I've only watched the sequel once so far, but thoroughly enjoyed it (more than the original, in fact.) Now (as I might have mentioned elsewere) I don't believe in passing judgement on the 'quality' of a film, only on how much I personally enjoy it (or find it interesting.)

Anyway, what I'm wondering now, is how do all the people who find Pirates unwatchable feel about films like the Tyrone Power "Zorro" or Fritz Lang's "Dr. Mabuse" or "The Adventures of Robin Hood"? Issues of quality aside, I enjoy those films for exactly the same reasons that I enjoyed Pirates of the Carribean 2 (the sword-fights, the serial-pacing, the colorful performances (especially the villians,) etc.)

Then again, I felt the same way about "Attack of the Clones"

I didn't want to see the first one, was my wife's choice, but was surprised by how much I actually enjoyed it. It was fun and both Depp and Rush made it worthwhile. But my dislike for the second one stems from the fact that I found the whole thing a crushing bore, from story to action scenes, even Depp and Nighy, as hard as they tried. This could have been the first movie I would walk out on except I figured my wife was enjoying it and wasn't going to leave her there. How disappointed I was to learn afterwards she hated it more than I did.

I love those other films you mention Darth, but they were at least (and still are) exciting, which popcorn films should be. Nothing about the second POTC film was exciting or interesting. It just felt like it was going through the motions and was a huge mess and a waste of time. It felt like it was building up to something that never materialized. Even when "a certain somebody" (trying not to spoil) shows up at the end I could have cared less.

Rumor has it this is going to be 170 minutes.

170 minutes? Obscene. Maybe they should split it in two.

Maybe it will be worth the ticket price.

Evidently they haven't even finished the editing or CGI and it opens a month from today.