the rum tastes really bad

As promised, here is the post about Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007). I was expecting it to be awful since the second was terrible, but I paid my £4 because I wanted to have the memory of seeing the last two in England. I spoil some things later on, so skip over the three paragraphs where the first of the three has "SPOILER" in its first sentence. I point this out because I do not want to ruin it for you if you are planning on seeing the film.

What can I say about the film that has not already been said? Yes, its special effects are among some of the best I have seen, but the film proves that special effects are not enough to sustain an entertaining movie experience. Yes, the thing is very confusing and hard to follow because they must have squeezed seven subplots in. And because the films in the franchise have already been established as moving very quickly through the action, they don't really give the audience enough time to catch up. Some parts I thought were in another language; I really had no idea what they were talking about. Others, I would have to wait ten minutes to figure out what someone ten minutes earlier had meant. On the whole, I understood the film, and they tied it up nice and tight so that we don't need a fourth installment (please no!). Just didn't understand everything as it happened.

It's a bit disheartening that the original scriptwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio also wrote this one. All of the originality, creativity, and spunk of the first has gradually been replaced by pitiful pastiches of the original. Everyone comes off as a caricature of the character he or she played in the first one. The second one was bad, but this one--clocking in at 168 minutes--is much worse. At least you can follow Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006). My worry is that Elliott and Rossio turned in a script that had so much going on because they were afraid one or two or maybe even three understandable plotlines would not be enough to warrant a film. Yes, but this thinking has an inverse effect: too much makes producing it and watching it pointless.

More specifically, I found different parts very problematic. The first is what has become of Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley). I'm not going to complain that she has turned into a full-fledged pirate. No. That's OK for the story, but what I take issue with is just how much of a sex object they have turned her into. The novelty of course is that she is the only woman, really. The pirates in Singapore even have a hard time treating her like an equal. To make a long story short, Elizabeth becomes the desired of at least five men. I know what you're thinking, there's no cap on how many men can desire one woman, but because she is attacked or gives into them, she directly figures into any physical relationship the men want her for.

First up, you have Will Turner (the disgusting Rambo lookalike Orlando Bloom), her beloved and eventually her husband. This makes a bit more sense than the others since you have watched them grow together since the first film, but that through most of this film Will is very distrustful of her and then asks her to marry him in the middle of a battle, is really quite ridiculous. The captain of the Black Pearl, Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush, the only truly convincing pirate performance), marries them then and there like. (I have more to say about their relationship, but it comes as a spoiler later on.)

There's always been sexual tension between Elizabeth and Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp). Sorry, Captain Jack Sparrow. They kissed in the second film, and in this one they make fun of it. Because just as Elizabeth is leaving to copulate with Will on the beach (how romantic: a line of pirates seeing you off to probably watch from the ship!), she goes in to kiss him, and he says something to the effect of "Once is enough." Ouch!

Then there's Admiral James Norrington (Jack Davenport, the sexiest one in the film) who basically gets no screen-time. Just enough to say that he is on Elizabeth's side. He helps her escape from the custody of the British Navy/East India Trading Company. And then he dies, but not before Elizabeth gives into his fantasy and kisses him.

The pirate lord of Singapore, Captain Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat), is also enamored with her. He's convinced she is the human embodiment of the goddess Calypso. He says he wants to make her his mistress, that he hopes she gives herself willingly but if she doesn't, he will take her by force. And this is all after he sort of proved himself to be a good guy. He forces himself on her. To her credit, Elizabeth actually pushes him off her. When he dies, he bequeaths the captainship (no pun intended) to her. Thus she's now a pirate lord.

The fifth man who wants Elizabeth is Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander). Only he's a little more vague. And nothing develops between them, thank god.

So, they have made a character that was once a bit empowering into one who is trapped by men not taking her seriously because they only want her sexually. I understand that this actually makes it more realistic, but when one of the main characters of the franchise is reduced to being a plaything for the men after having experienced some corset-free action is anti-feminist. They give Elizabeth some room to be herself and explore, but then they strap her down. With all those plotlines, one thing remains consistent: Elizabeth's sex appeal. (Nevermind the fact that Keira Knightley is rather boyish in that she has almost no breasts. She's also got one terrible underbite and eyebrows that are way darker than her haircolor. All those days in the sun, eh?)

Here comes the SPOILER: In case you're not fully convinced by my argument, the bonus scene at the end of the VERY long credits cements this status of hers. But first, a little background info from the feature: Will Turner has become the new captain of the Flying Dutchman, the ship that Davy Jones (the Great Bill Nighy, who has been reduced to CGI) has controlled throughout the last two films. Will has become the captain because he killed Davy Jones. The Flying Dutchman is responsible for making sure all the souls that are lost at sea make it to the afterlife. Will, unless someone stabs his heart that is kept in the chest (hence the name of the second film where Davy's predicament was introduced), will carry this duty out for all eternity. And every ten years, he can come back up to the land (or sea) of the living so he can fuck Elizabeth. That is why the consummation of their marriage is a big deal. She won't be able to be with Will for ten more years.

Anyway, in the scene at the end of the credits, Elizabeth and a young boy are waiting on the same island where she and Will first had sex. He probably doesn't know that she's got a little son just dying to meet him. The scene only shows him pop up from the underworld; we don't see him get on the island and meet them. In any case, Elizabeth has merely become a way for Will and his legacy to stay alive. They have strapped her into becoming a mother. How does she continue to pirate? And do you see how there's no need for a fourth? It's wrapped up pretty nicely. Besides, if they were literally at the end of the world when they fought to keep piracy alive, what new challenge could really match that one? Aliens?

Elizabeth's becoming a mother also reminds me of something else equally misogynist. Elizabeth's treatment is very much like the treatment of Princess Isabelle (Sophie Marceau) in Braveheart (1995). Because Murron (Catherine McCormack) died in the first half and could not provide hero William Wallace (Mel Gibson) with some sons, the Princess carries out this requirement for the narrative, and their coupling even goes so far as to suggest that Wallace's kin will one day take the English throne. Such a shame.

The second problem of this film concerns Tia Dalma (Naomie Harris), who was introduced in the second film as a sort of voodoo guru. If you ask me, her representation is rather racist. She is black, speaks with a distinctly Caribbean accent that no one else does (is that Jamaican?), and is highly sexualized. She is a walking stereotype a la the TV psychic Miss Cleo. But she's also Calypso, Davy Jones's beloved who is trapped in the human form of "Tia Dalma." After the world's pirate lords meet and Barbossa sets Calypso free (their predecessors' council was also the one that put her under this spell in the past), she morphs into a 50-foot woman before escaping as millions of crabs. When the spell is first broken, Tia Dalma is wrapped up in rope as if she is nothing but an animal. And when she is the giant, her clothes are ripped, she screams at them down below but you can't understand her, and overall she looks very primitive but still sexy. I understand that in order for Tia Dalma to be mysterious and magical, she would have to be black. We don't really think of white people as being voodoo gurus, do we? But I just thought the filmmakers crushed her under so many stereotypes that she came off as no better than if she were a mammy.

My third problem is with the British military morphing into the East India Trading Company. This has gradually happened since the second film, when Lord Cutler Beckett was presented as evil because he took over the jurisdiction of Governor Swann (Jonathan Pryce, whose death scene is the only touching one in the third film). Nevermind the fact that they're actually in the West Indies. (Maybe I missed this; maybe they're called the East India Trading Company because they had previously been to the East and had made their fortune there, moving to the West Indies to make more. I really don't know. But they should rename themselves the West Indies Trading Company then.)

In any case, Beckett's more evil in this one because he wants to make pirates, who are bad for his business, extinct. This is the main plot, that all the pirates must learn to trust each other and fight off the EITC. But it really sinks under all the other plotlines so that when the last battle is fought, you almost forget what they are fighting for. It's rather anti-climatic to boot. Plus Beckett is a sort of Napoleonic character because--I love you Tom, but you know, you're, uh, short.

But my question is, what are the implications of turning the enemy that once was the British government into the enemy that is now the EITC? For such a huge blockbuster franchise, it's a bit hypocritical, don't you think, that at the center of the story is an anti-capitalistic message? More than this though, doesn't this imply how corporatized our world is becoming? Soon it's no longer going to be about governments or nations. Everything will be in the hands of the multinational/transnational corporations. Some might say it already is.

On the other hand, I wonder if pirates today use this film as a sort of manifesto. Johnny Depp and Keith Richards, who plays his dad in this one (and not very well, mind you), have hinted that rock stars are modern-day pirates. But I mean: do the film pirates in Asia and Canada, for instance, justify what they do with this wildly popular trilogy? In other words, does the film make it OK to pirate films, especially this one, since piracy is at the core of these sympathetic heroes who are fighting The Man?

There are so many problems with this film (franchise) that if I were to discuss them all, my arguments and explanations would become just as twisted as all the stupid plotlines.

This long blog post has been very unexpected. When Denise met Lisa and me for dinner (where I ate the aforementioned bangers 'n' mash), she asked us how the film was. I told her she definitely didn't miss anything. Later on, she asked again, and I said I need time to think about it, to process it. I didn't think I had much to say other than "it wasn't funny," "it was too long and boring," "it was just ridiculous." Turns out I was wrong.