As I had been given Gold Class tickets through work, and these tickets expire at the end of this month, Justine and I decided to use the tickets to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.  We chose the Jam Factory Gold Class as this is the one that has been most newly refurbished so we figured it would be a good time to check it out.

The most significant differences between this Gold Class and the ones we’ve previously visited is that the staff come to you and take your order, as well as having a “call” button between each seat pair to, well, call a waiter. As it’s been a while since we visited any Gold Class, this may be common in the others now.  The screen and sound system at the Jam Factory are much bigger and louder than other ones, the screen is almost a regular size screen. The seats are also different; similar but just as comfortable.

On to the movie: Throughout, I had trouble determining who was the focus of the film. It certainly didn’t seem to be the Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) character, as he was absent for many scenes. So then who? It seems as though the writers were unsure who should be the main protagonist so avoided giving anyone too much screen time.

Too much screen time is a nice segue into my next point: there was too much screen time. The movie ran for a good two-hours-and-forty-five minutes (which, in hindsight, is good value for a Gold Class visit) but I’d say it ran forty-five to sixty minutes long.

Of course, I had to slum it and order popcorn and a Coke, while other patrons ordered beers, cakes, pastries and other fancy things. To be honest I hadn’t even considered ordering fancy food so we had dinner beforehand. Plus I just felt like movie popcorn.

Justine, Justine’s mum and I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest on Thursday and since I haven’t written much else here recently, I’ll write about that, and you can read it if you care.

I really loved the first film. Everything just seemed to work. It was funny, had enough action, didn’t get too bogged down in the lovey-dovey scenes, and was just plain fun to watch.

The second film has pretty much all of the same elements: evil pirates, explosions, people yelling “arrgh”, swordfights, ship-to-ship fights, and a lot more. But it doesn’t seem to mesh quite as well as the first.

I left the cinema not knowing if I really enjoyed the film enough to want to see it again, which is not really a good sign. It seems as though the shell of the film is there, but it doesn’t appear to have the same delicious gooey centre that the first had; it’s been drained or sucked out by some greedy suit.

It’s also really interesting that the guy who created the Monkey Island games saw a lot of parallels between the game and this movie — there are a lot of similarities: the Jamaican voodoo lady in the swamp, the pirate ghost ship (OK, so that was in the first too, in a different way) are the best two examples I can think of. I’m having trouble deciding who would be Guybrush, but I’d say it would have to be the Orlando Bloom character.

I’ll be there for the third, which comes out next year, but my expectations are not going to be as high this time around.