Pirates of the Caribbean – At Wit’s End

I do not know why this blog is turning into a movie review place. May be I am watching too many movies. May be I feel strongly about what I see that I sit down and write about them. May be I have no other work to do. May be…

G and I met an ISB colleague on Saturday night in the Centre Stage Mall. (The one in which they use room fresheners outside to keep the overflowing sewers from bothering the “upwardly mobile crowd” walking in). After making sure that we weren’t carrying any Anthrax packets or Kashalnikovs with a 2-inch swoosh of the apparatus resembling a metal detector that for some reason kept beeping constantly (I suspected low battery), the guards let us in. Over a cuppa and some banter, we decided to go for a movie. The only hall that had a show starting around that time was showing “Pirates of the Caribbean”.

Apart from discovering that Platinum lounges don’t serve you food, cost just 150 bucks a seat and usually never fill-up even on Saturday nights, I found the movie to be a bit too long, but bearable. It was boring till Johnny Depp entered and less boring afterwards. Nothing special or noteworthy, but normal PoC stuff. However, I was a bit annoyed with the way it dragged on in the last half hour. It looked more like those Indian mega-serials which never seem to end even after reaching three or four logical conclusions. Indian audience are trained to empty the remaining popcorn either into their bellies or onto the floor (whichever looks emptier) the moment you show them a zooming-out silhouette of a person waving hands or in a tight clasp with the lead-character of the opposite gender. Unfortunately, such scenes were woefully repeated three or four times and still the movie dragged on much to the annoyance of the crowd that decided to stay after the interval. However, after we braced ourselves several times saying, “this too shall end”, it did happen! There was one final long shot, surely the last one, for it was too long to be followed by another scene and the theater emptied at an alarming rate.

My Verdict: Can watch once.