Pirates of the Caribbean: The Search for More Money

They seem to have found it, and found a shitload. The second in a trilogy of PotC films blew Superman's opening away, and possibly annihilated Supes' chances of breaking even at the box office.

But here's the problem: the movie wasn't very good. I don't feel that I wasted my money, but I won't be seeing it again at the theatre (and I will be returning for a second showing of Superman), and I'm not excited about seeing the third film.

I'm nothing if not fair, so let me tell you what I liked about the flick.
1. Johnny Depp. I'm not a fan of his work, as a whole or in part, but there's something about the job he does with Jack Sparrow that I can't help but like.
2. The CGI. I could have sworn Davy Jones (played by Bill Nighy) was part practical makeup, part CGI. Until I read an interview with him where he said it was all CGI. Wow. The rest of his crew was spectacular, too, so I foresee an Oscar nomination for visual effects.
3. I guess that's it. Oh well.

Now we come to what I didn't like.
1. The length. I've said this before, but if a movie's going to be over 2 hours, it had better be able to justify that running time. And this one doesn't. About an hour in, I knew what they had to do, I was just waiting for them to do it. They then proceeded to throw so many little twists and turns in that the movie dragged on for another hour and a half.
2. The Kraken. Sure, it was impressive, but did we have to see it four goddamn times? We get it.
3. Muddled story. So they're doing two sequels, shot back to back. It's been done before, most notably with Back to the Future and The Matrix. Back to the Future was awesome. Matrix, not so much. With Pirates, it almost felt like the creators were intentionally dragging things out to justify two films. All these different sub-plots and minor twists are there just to be there, to pad the running time, which is too long to begin with.
4. No resolution. Of anything. Yeah, ok, there's another movie, but can't you tie up at least a few things? Just one? No, everything has to be unfinished, so we'll come back for the finale.

Well, I'm not sure I want to. And after they have some time to think about it, I'm not sure everyone else will, either. Remember how The Matrix was a surprise hit, and the creators wanted to cash in with two sequels, and everyone flocked to the second movie, but since it was shit, nobody saw the third? I think that may be what ends up happening to Pirates. We'll have to wait and see.

I know one thing: it's a damn shame if this results in there not being another Superman movie, because I thought that was much better than PotC 2.