Pirates of the Caribbean: Heart of the Maelstrom

(Watched 1080p mp4 version)

I thought I had cut my two POTC edits TO-THE-BONE but it looks I was way wrong. Setting aside the Jack-being-brought-back-from-the-dead section (From the end of DMC and start of AWE), which is cunningly removed from this edit and totaled about 50minutes... DSM2337 has suceeded in removing a further 30minutes! I'm not even sure from where, as the edits were mostly invisible. Nice work!

Audio/Video Quality: 8
Video looked pretty damn good but I think the 1080p treatment was a little wasted on the 6.3GB filesize. IMHO I don't think you can get the best out of a full-HD 3-hour movie at that bitrate.

Visual Editing: 9
Visual edits were near perfect and the two-in-one Tia Dalma editing was creative.

Audio Editing: 7
Audio edits were mostly smooth-as-silk across the 3 hours but there were 6-7, or maybe 8 occasions in the edit where the audio/dialogue sounded terrible. Like it was fed into a cheap transistor radio in a heavily sound-proofed room and then re-recorded. I'm not sure if this was an error or what? It was especially bad during the Tia Dalma scene.

Narrative: 8
Considering just how much of the labyrinthine plot was removed, there were very few "plot holes". One that stood out, was Jack having a Jar of dirt because??? (That's a minor, minor thing that's easy to ignore). I must admit I was disapointed that the join between the two movies featured a "Some months later" titlecard and musical montage. If you're gonna have a big break like that between the two halves, then this isn't working 100% as a single movie IMO. Especially as I think DSM2337 did some really creative edits around the join, that could have been taken a little further and then not needed the musical/title bridge.

Enjoyment: 9
Despite a few small problems this a superb way to watch these two bloated, convoluted yet often thrilling movies. Because it's just the thrills and with 2 hours and 25 minutes removed, surprisingly, the plot actually makes more sense!

Highly reccomended edit. Probably the definitive POTC experience.