Pirate of the Caribbean 3: No End in Sight

God damn.

Pirates of the Caribbean: No End in Sight is one long-ass movie. I mean, holy fucking shit on a milkbone, what a overblown, bloviated pile of shit. Never mind people saying such and such made Baby Jesus cry. Those dumbasses are just using a quote from The Simpsons the way annoying secretaries use "Dilbert": that is to imply they have a sense of humor by stealing from people who do. So, forget about Jesus. This thing made me cry, and that's a fucksite more important to me in the near-term. It made me sob because I had no watch, so I had no idea how much longer the pointless, loud folderol would continue. It made me weep because I had to pee something fierce and it was opening night and the theater was packed. There were fat fucking, nose-whistling pigs sitting on either side of me blocking my escape. By the time I finally did escape (the cows sat through the equally long and equally tedious credits), it was more than three hours after I entered. That includes trailers, but still, a long fucking time.

I think Pirates may be what Shakespeare meant when he had MacBeth say, "A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Of course, he wrote that a long, long time ago, so he probably was referring to one of the Porky's movies or Police Academy 4. Anyway, it applies to Pirates because it sure is noisy, and a lot of people on screen sure act furious--though I don't know why--and it all adds up to a big, fat rolling donut. Of course, there are loads of idiots behind this turd.

If there is a plot, I've got no clue what it is. More importantly, I don't want a clue. Leave all that to sad little people with nothing better to do than sit around watching this shitty movie over and over until they think they understand it. It won't be until those people are old and tired that they realize, "Oh, fuck, I wasted my prime years sorting garbage with my mind." No offense to garbagemen; I have the utmost respect for people who get paid to do it.

There's a bunch of shit that happens before the main pirate Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) enters the movie, but I can't remember what it is. I think it was Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley reminding us they're boring twits, and Naomie Harris as a voodoo queen whose fake accent is so damn thick I couldn't understand half of what she said. The half I could was utter horseshit, so let's assume the other half was too. Anyway, for some reason, Knightley and Bloom, along with bone-in ham Geoffrey Rush as another pirate captain, go to Singapore and meet Chow Yun Fat, starring as the most superfluous character in cinema since Jar-Jar Binks. Don't worry, Fat gets upstaged later by Kieth Richards in a cameo so pointless, it's as sharp as yet another rolling donut.

The characters change allegiances faster than I do in the Tavern at 1 a.m. on payday. At least I have a clear and sympathetic motivation: do whatever I have to to be friends with the last person who still has cash. Here, everything swings to and fro purely for the sake of more special effects and more fights. Not a single character is worth rooting for. Hell, not a single character is consistent in what he wants.

Even all the action doesn't point to anything. There is no mounting tension or buildup, partially because it's fucking impossible to tell why the hell anyone is doing anything. Mostly, though, it's because the movie just plays out like blockbuster sequence after blockbuster sequence, with about as much holding them together as the shredded tendons that dangled Worm's finger from his hand after he stuck in a moving blender trying to steal some tequila.

In the end, the current lineup of "good" guys, which of course includes all the high-paid stars, fights with the current lineup of "bad" guys. I had long forgotten who was on which side. I know there were supposed to be nine pirate "lords" fighting together, but the movie only bothers to show one or two of them, after spending a God damn hour assembling them. There is a big whirlpool created by a fifty-foot woman who turned into crabs (I once knew a six-foot woman who had crabs), and they spin around it, suggesting that someone might go down the same way the poor old Tid-E Bowl man met his fate long ago. Lots of pirates switch ships, making the allegiances even harder to fathom.

Another pathetic piece of this movie is how it tries to turn Kiera Knightley into something she's not: tough and interesting. On the one hand, the movie keeps handing her the role of swashbuckling tough chick, now a pirate lord and commander at sea. On the other hand, the damn lady never gets dirty, is always shiny and is captured in only the most flattering light. It's retarded, but especially so since all Knightley can do to act tough is keep donning the same slightly confused grimace. And I don't mean slightly confused Grimace, as in the fat purple guy. That guy would be infinitely more believable.

Pirates is just a fucking mess. Maybe this is what Hollywood thinks makes good movies: piling it on, like it's a sampler platter at TGI Friday's. There's a shitload on the plate, but none of it's any good. Then again, a lot of people eat at Friday's, bloat up and feel terrible about it later. But they forget and keep coming back... for more poppers and wings, and for more stuffed sequels. Two Fingers.