Good and Bad Ideas
2 days ago
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Pirates of the Caribbean II
When Pirates first came out, Shawn and I made a pact not to see it until next summer. That way, we wouldn't be supporting their weenie ploy of releasing half the movie at a time. I think they did this for the obvious reason of guaranteeing themselves twice the money (everyone who paid to see the first half, now has to pay again just to see how the stupid thing ends) and for the other obvious reason that the importance of editing has been overshadowed by the allure of CG (remember how EVERY SCENE in King Kong was 1 minute too long?).
Anyway, after hearing "It was better than the first one" about 10 times, I caved. Shawn and I saw it last night. Big mistake. The makers of Pirates seem to have forgotten that while action and adventure are exciting, a movie also needs . . . I don't know . . . a coherent plot, interesting dialogue, characters that show some level of consistency with their established roles in the previous movie. Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow has become a caricature of the persona in the first movie. In this movie, Jack wore more make-up, pranced more often, made more facial grimaces and got himself into increasingly more ridiculous situations. Unfortunately more does not equal better. In this case, it just equaled a one-dimensional character who was rather annoying to watch strut about.
In the original Pirates, I'll admit it, I found Jack quite sexy. In this movie, he was just girly and creepy (sexy people do not, I repeat, DO NOT nibble on detached human toes). This cross over from sexy to creepy is unfortunate because it does nothing to help the lame love-triangle between Will, Elizabeth and Jack. Of course, the ZERO chemistry between Depp and Knightly doesnt help either. Oh and while I am on the subject, the character of Elizabeth seems to have suffered from the same fate that befell Amadala in Star Wars. In this sequel, she shows a lot less spunk and honor (things that seem completely out of character). In one scene, she throws rocks and pouts to stop a fight; rather than doing something useful. If this keeps up, I expect that the final Pirates movie will show Elizabeth dying after compromising everything she stood for in the original movie because she lost the will to live (just in case you didn't get it, that was a slam on the new Star Wars Trilogy).
All in all, this movie had some entertaining gags (about 10 minutes worth) but unless you enjoying spending hours complaining about the movie's obvious flaws (like I do), it wasn't worth seeing.
Anyway, after hearing "It was better than the first one" about 10 times, I caved. Shawn and I saw it last night. Big mistake. The makers of Pirates seem to have forgotten that while action and adventure are exciting, a movie also needs . . . I don't know . . . a coherent plot, interesting dialogue, characters that show some level of consistency with their established roles in the previous movie. Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow has become a caricature of the persona in the first movie. In this movie, Jack wore more make-up, pranced more often, made more facial grimaces and got himself into increasingly more ridiculous situations. Unfortunately more does not equal better. In this case, it just equaled a one-dimensional character who was rather annoying to watch strut about.
In the original Pirates, I'll admit it, I found Jack quite sexy. In this movie, he was just girly and creepy (sexy people do not, I repeat, DO NOT nibble on detached human toes). This cross over from sexy to creepy is unfortunate because it does nothing to help the lame love-triangle between Will, Elizabeth and Jack. Of course, the ZERO chemistry between Depp and Knightly doesnt help either. Oh and while I am on the subject, the character of Elizabeth seems to have suffered from the same fate that befell Amadala in Star Wars. In this sequel, she shows a lot less spunk and honor (things that seem completely out of character). In one scene, she throws rocks and pouts to stop a fight; rather than doing something useful. If this keeps up, I expect that the final Pirates movie will show Elizabeth dying after compromising everything she stood for in the original movie because she lost the will to live (just in case you didn't get it, that was a slam on the new Star Wars Trilogy).
All in all, this movie had some entertaining gags (about 10 minutes worth) but unless you enjoying spending hours complaining about the movie's obvious flaws (like I do), it wasn't worth seeing.
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