Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.

"If you've already got deja vu from the current been-there-done-that-twice-already trifecta of Spidey, Shrek and pirate Johnny Depp, welcome to summer blockbuster season in this year of our Lord 2007," writes Sean Burns, introducing the Philadelphia Weekly's summer movie guide. "In Los Angeles they call it 'investing in proven commodities,' which translated from studio-speak means that these days there's just too damn much money at stake for anybody to try to sell you anything you haven't already bought before." The L Magazine's preview is "selective" and rather pretty to look at.

At any rate, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is this week's designated water carrier for all items related to these seasonal proven commodities.

"Long before the third, fourth, or fifth climax in this endless, obligatory summer diversion, I slunk into my seat in a passive, inattentive stupor, fully submitting to the fact that I hadn’t the slightest idea what the hell was going on," warns Nathan Lee in the Voice. "POTC:AWE is a lukewarm maelstrom of secret agendas, double crossings, tricky alliances, back stabbings, familial complications, romantic entanglements, political conspiracies, warring factions, hidden gods, cheeky monkeys, and excessive eyeliner—some of which is linked to events from the previous installments, some of which is freshly pulled out of the collective ass of director Gore Verbinski and writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, and none of which is the least bit captivating or, by and large, comprehensible."

The Los Angeles Times runs a one-reporter Pirates package: Mary McNamara measures what all the franchise has done for the supporting players, checks in on the hair and make-up crew and talks with Vanessa Branch and Lauren Maher, "the tarted-up wenches."

"Tom Rothman, a co-chairman of Fox, said the studio 'consciously took advantage' of the summertime action-movie gap in its decision to release its fourth Die Hard on June 27, five days after Universal's Evan Almighty and a week before Transformers, from Paramount and DreamWorks," reports Michael Cieply for the New York Times. "A surfeit of 'fantasy and computer-generated visual effects has left a hunger in the audience for real things,' Mr Rothman added. Over the next few weeks Fox will tease that perceived appetite with a marketing campaign that promotes John McClane with the words: 'No mask. No cape. No problem.'"

"Money talks, but it doesn't write all that well, and it can scarcely direct a movie at all." Michael Wood in the London Review of Books on the 3quels of summer. Via Movie City News.

Los Angeles Times critic Carina Chocano suggests an alternate title for Pirates, At Wit's End: "The third in a series that appears to be hinting at immortality in more ways than one, Pirates 3 demands intimate knowledge of the first two installments, not to mention a sterling memory and attention span. In other words, it pays to be prepared. Seriously, this thing is a stern master - walk in casually off the street and you risk nearly three hours of very high-octane confusion."

Updates, 5/24: "In [Pirates'] downbeat opening, we find that the East India Company, the Halliburton of the 18th century, has reduced its colonies to a prison, sending ranks of suspected pirates and collaborators to the gallows," notes Peter Keough in the Boston Phoenix. "So much for escapism. But what Gore Verbinski's second sequel to his adaptation of the themepark ride is really about, I believe, is eternal damnation."

"The cannibals, coconuts and landlocked locations have been replaced by the high-seas high jinks that made the first film so enjoyable," writes a relieved Jeannette Catsoulis in the New York Times. "And the palpable relief as the myriad plotlines rush toward some semblance of resolution has made everyone quite giddy; even our passion-deferred lovers, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann (Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley), appear marginally less bored with each other. Or at least less bored than we are with them."

"The flick is far from perfect, indeed it's bottom-heavy and swollen to bursting with wriggling plot threads, but damn if I didn't have a good time tagging along on this third adventure with all my old Pirates pals," writes Scott Weinberg for Cinematical, where Ryan Budke talks with Verbinski and Jerry Bruckheimer.

"Perhaps it is hopelessly old-fashioned, in a post-franchise, blockbuster wasteland, to look for either characters or themes to be developed across a popcorn trilogy, but there is occasional evidence that it can still be done," writes Michelle Orange for the Reeler. "Even Spider-Man 3 features characters we have come to care about, and a credible attempt at some visual and thematic psychology. In the sense that it gives only the most disingenuous nods to continuity, both within itself and within the trilogy, At World's End is a vastly, almost sublimely cynical spectacle."

With Pirates, "the summer blockbuster begins to approach the level of pure abstraction," muses Dana Stevens at Slate. "Adrift in the windless seas of its 168-minute running time, the viewer passes through confusion and boredom into a state of Buddhist passivity."

Updates, 5/25: Andy Klein kicks off the LA CityBeat's "Summer Film Preview" issue by declaring that "Jerry Bruckheimer's no fool: If the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie made twice as much money as the first by doubling certain qualities of the story and the style, then by all means double them again for the third. Which means that Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is even noisier, more frenetic, more pointlessly complicated, and - God help us - longer than its predecessors. There is so much classic Bruckheimer bloat here that he could have called it Arrrrrr-mageddon."

"I mean, as pirate movies go, the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie is actually pretty good," writes Sean Nelson in the Stranger. "Compared to Roman Polanski's moribund Pirates, or the Renny Harlin/Geena Davis fiasco Cutthroat Island, or even the Christopher Atkins/Kristy McNichol vehicle The Pirate Movie, Gore Verbinski's cinematic extrapolation of the fifth-best Disneyland ride is goddamn Ran. But compared to good movies, even dumb good movies, it's a pretty paltry exercise in franchise prolongment."

"This is a glazed, inhuman, cluttered piece of work, a storytelling mishmash that buries the considerable charms of its actors under heavy drifts of silt," writes Salon's Stephanie Zacharek.

"Even if it consisted of nothing but Johnny Depp picking his nose with a cutlass for two-and-a-half hours, everyone would still have to go and see it for themselves, wouldn't they?" asks Steve Rose in the Guardian. "Our weapons are useless against it. Fortunately, it's more entertaining than watching Depp pick his nose, but this is one hulking, cumbersome beast of a movie."

"What a load of old cannonballs," sighs Anthony Quinn in the Independent. "The only thing that holds good in this, the concluding part of the Pirates trilogy, is the law of diminishing returns."

"[T]o anyone who's seen other so-called 'three-quels' such as X-Men 3, Spider-Man 3 or The Matrix Revolutions, there's something depressingly familiar about the bloated overkill that defines every aspect of At World's End," writes Kevin Maher in the London Times.

Update, 5/27: Adjust the total grosses for inflation and you'll see that today's blockbusters still don't come anywhere near those of the past. Chris Conway introduces a chart in the New York Times.

Updates, 5/29: It was a three-day weekend in much of Europe as well, so Pirates 3 raked it in, as Sharon Waxman reports.

"In today's Hollywood, blockbuster franchises function almost as independent corporations that, once up and running, can't easily be mothballed. Which is why another Pirates is pretty much a given," writes Josh Friedman in the LAT, where Mary McNamara profiles Bill Nighy.

Update, 5/30: Sara Vilkomerson presents a "Non-Idiot's Guide to Summer Movies" in the New York Observer.

Posted by dwhudson at May 23, 2007 1:48 AM