First off let me say that normally I dont really think about nor worry about how much violence or dark idea's are in a film. I quite like a good horror as you know and feel the dark sway to the comic book movies of late has been really great, but, when I go in to see a Disney movie that is a western starring Johnny Depp I'm expecting some fun, upbeat and humourous action mixed with a good story line. In fact I would go so far as to think that this movie would be destined more for young'uns and just checking found that this was actually M15+ (thankfully) and not PG13 as I originally thought it was.
The film is violent! For example, in the first third of the movie the bad guy of the film played by William Fichtner turns out to be a cannibal that eats the hearts of his victims. Halfway through the movie there is the complete destruction and genocide of an American Indian boys tribe and then in the last act a gattling gun mows down Indian Apache's as they ride on some white people. Its fairly obvious that the studio decided, in its typical way, that just because everything at the moment is 'dark' this needed to be aswell. This totally destroyed the film and for once I kind of wish they had just delivered the PG13 fun version of the film, which is different from what I normally say, but maybe I'm wrong sometimes.
If the movie was 45mins shorter, cut out all of the really dark violence of the bad guys, had a lot more Depp and Hammer humour and cut out the awesome but utterly over the top 45 minute train action adventure set piece that finishes the movie, I think I would be raving about this film as much as I did with the first Pirates movie. You can see the amazing film in amongst the crap and that makes it all the worse when you sit there watching the mess it ended up being unfold on the screen infront of you. Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp do share a real on screen chemistry and I wish that had been the focus of the movie. All of the evilness portrayed overshadows the 'Hero' of the movie and throwing money into expensive and over the top scenes that are unnecessary doesn't fix the other problems.
So do I recommend seeing the film? Well, yes, it certainly isnt the worst movie Ive ever seen. Its just an over ambitious, over budgeted, over edited mess of a blockbuster thats far too long. Go and see it at least once but dont expect to see the fun and adventure of a Pirates movie. Instead expect some very dark themes, quite a bit of violence, some very silly behaviour topped with a great bit of acting from the two main leads.
SCORE: 6/10
