fabrisse

I liked it.

I wanted to put that at the very top because I'm dealing with the flaws first.

The pacing of the film was off. I wish I could be more specific than that, but certain scenes that weren't important seemed interminable and others that were seemed to end to soon almost before we got to their meat and marrow.

The worst things for me were the endings. There were too many, and, while they ended with the one that was best for the franchise, I'm not at all certain chose the ending that was best for the movie. I firmly believe that Will walking to his ship would have been the best ending to the movie I saw. The Barbossa ending was the least necessary; the Jack ending, as I mentioned, was great for the franchise and good for the character. It wasn't the emotional heart of the movie though, and that disappointed me.

Now here's what's good.

The second film was too light for me. I felt that, in many ways, they had to take huge liberties with the characters we knew -- particularly Jack -- to get the plot they wanted. (See here for my take on Jack's innate honesty.)

In this film, Jack was still honest -- a pirate of course, but honest.

It was good that there were consequences from the actions of the second movie in this one. Will's promise to his father, Elizabeth's destruction of Jack, even Calypso's decision to bring Barbossa back all had their seeds planted in the second movie.

Will's and Elizabeth's story, which was at the core of the first movie, was also in high relief here. "It was not your burden to bear" haunted me.

There were so many different loves. Love for the sea whether an embodiment or the thing itself was a huge theme -- Jack, Jack's father, Davy Jones, Barbossa -- even Ragetti whispering in Calypso's ear -- all have different aspects of it. And the implication that the East India Company couldn't have been a dominant force if the Brethren's Council hadn't sown the seeds of its own destruction by imprisoning Calypso was fascinating.

Mastery should be gained through developing skills, not taken by force.

Elizabeth and her father's loves for each other were stunning.

The implication that from the point of view of the Pirates in the Disney ride, we're visible as dead souls is an interesting bit of commentary on how Disney sees its punters.

There was one overarching theme that struck me. Disney, one of the largest multi-national conglomerates in the world, attacked the big business ethos as represented by the East India Company and did it in the name of the freedoms of the Bill of Rights.

The horrible pun of the rights "suspended" as the bodies were suspended from the gibbet underscored exactly what giving up our rights ("Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." -- Benjamin Franklin) does to us as a society. The brethren's council may have been anarchic, but, as the scene with electing the Pirate King shows, it was under a rule of law.

WooHoo! Let's hope this seeps into the dreams of every child who sees the movie.

What did y'all think?