My Blog

• Date Watched
• Format
• With

Date Watched

Wednesday 15th February 2012

Format

Sky 3D

With

Julian Mogford

Originally, the plan for tonight was to watch Tron : Legacy - a film that I have been trying to persuade Dad to watch for a long time.  But that is currently on loan to a friend who recently got a new 3D setup so we had to find something else.  I gave Dad the pick of my Blu-ray collection, Sky Hard Drive or Anytime Plus.  In the end it was narrowed down to True Grit, Clash of the Titans 3D, or Pirates of the Carribean : On Stranger Tides 3D.  As the title of this article suggests – Dad chose the latter.

I loved the original Pirates film and saw it at the cinema, as well as the sequel.  The third I didn’t bother with at the cinema, and watched on Blu-ray.  I enjoyed it (particularly the opening scene which was dark and awesome) but found it dragged a lot.  On Stranger Tides had such stinking reviews that even the fact it was Imax 3D could not drag me to the cinema.  It was the perfect film to catch on Sky 3D though, where it wouldn’t cost me anything to find out if it was as bad as they say.

And boy is it bad.  Everything you have heard is not enough to prepare you for how bad it is.  It is convoluted, confused and meanders along as if the director was making it up as he went along.  Geoffrey Rush, again, is the best thing in it with Depp running him a close second.  In fact the one thing I can complement it on is that Sparrow is dialed back, being much less of a caricature than he is in the third.  His dialogue is easily the best in a moribund script and the whole film just kind of bemuses you with it’s complications.  The supernatural elements are dialed back immensly so this is the most child friendly of the franchise.  Very little violence here.  But I cannot remotely recommend it, unless it pops up on your TV screen when it passes a couple of hours.  I would consider ripped off even if I rented it.

On the plus side this is one film that you DO want to catch in 3D if you can.  The 3D is absolutely stunning – throwing things out of the screen as well as giving you pleasing depth.  The opening scenes are too dark, leading to problems seeing what is going on – but once we get to London things are fine and spectacular is not too strong a word.  In fact – this is the rare film where the 3D almost makes it worth watching just for the effect.

The surround sound is also impressive and enhances the experience.

In short, if you have 3D capabilities then this is worth seeking out for the experience.  If you only have 2D?  Forget it, is my advice.  It takes the worse aspects of all the previous films and merges them together into a turgid mess.