Rant
It has been a week since I saw the movie, Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man's Chest (DMC), and I am still a little upset about having lost those 3 hours of my life.
Sure I was able to relax and spend some honey-honey time with my wife but, that movie is awful. Truly awful. Here are some random thoughts.
Apparently the new age of digital special effects has rendered the need for plot and character development as optional pandering to the casually intelligent movie-goer. Eye candy reigns supreme in DMC to the point where it is tiring to the brain. Of course, to the brain, special effects are like cotton candy, flat soda and carbohydrates. Plot and character development are protein. So, if I understand the procedure, watching this movie is something like indoctrination into a cult.
The story in DMC is not only flat-lining but the writer's seem to put a pillow over its face and suffocate it entirely in an effort to bring in other elements so as to see more special effects.
I am pretty easy-going about the idea of suspended disbelief when seeing movies, especially fantasy type movies. However, in one particularly insulting sequence of DMC it takes longer for a giant wheel to roll down the side of a mountain and into the bay than it does for the other characters to run there on foot while fighting with other characters.
Of course Johnny Depp is funny and always interesting to watch. Not as a character in this movie, but just as a human exhibit. Sort of like staring at a social freak in the airport. His character provided exactly two moments of comic relief in this film. Other than that one was just watching him move about in his ambiguously-sexually-oriented strut. Does everyone in France walk like that? Or does he just think that all pirates strode about in a manner that made law-abiding citizens wonder if the rumors about pirate sexual preference were true or not?
All that aside, the most insulting aspect of this movie is that we are not supposed to recognize the fact that the poor excuse for writing is really just a rip-off of the first Star Wars trilogy. Let's see, that would be Star Wars episodes IV, V and VI. (As if George Lucas really had all six episodes in his head and decided to start with episode IV. Yeah, the story sure seemed tightly written in that regard. Uh-huh. But I digress.)
DMC and Empire Strikes Back (ESB) have a lot in common.
Three lead heroes --
ESB: Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo.
DMC: Will Turner, Elizabeth Swan, Jack Sparrow.
A couple of evil villians --
ESB: Darth Vader and The Emporer
DMC: Norrington (?) and Lord Beckett
Let's see . . . the need for wisdom from an outside authority --
ESB: Yoda, who lives in a weird, lush swamp
DMC: Tia Dalma, who lives in a weird, lush swamp
Oh, and the need for a cliff hanger to make sure the next part of the story will be a box-office must --
ESB: Han Solo frozen in carbonite
DMC: Jack Sparrow swallowed by the Kraken
Someone assist lead the expedition to save the imperiled hero --
ESB: Lando Calrissian
DMC: Captain Barbossa
Background cannon fodder of the evil side --
ESB: cookie-cutter, faceless stormtroopers whose death has no emotional pull on the audience
DMC: inept, enslaved and quasi-dead pirates who don't have free will or sufficient talent to seek other roles (they were probably 90% CG anyway)
Comic relief from idiotic sideshow freaks patterned after Laurel & Hardy --
ESB: C3PO and R2D2
DMC: Ragetti and Pintel
It goes on, but my mind throbs in protest of the memories.
Still, just a couple o' more . . .
Who will make mountains of money from this mediocre story set against a spectacular special effects production --
ESB: George Lucas (who now sees the possibilities of episodes I, II and III materialize)
DMC: Disney (who now sees the possibilities of more movie-based rides and ride-based movies)
Who will shell out money to see these future productions --
ESB: Me and the general population (though I was more and more disappointed as the series drug on)
DMC: The general population, but not me (unless of course I accompany the lovely wife or suffer exposure to a memory-altering Disney ray)
Sure I was able to relax and spend some honey-honey time with my wife but, that movie is awful. Truly awful. Here are some random thoughts.
Apparently the new age of digital special effects has rendered the need for plot and character development as optional pandering to the casually intelligent movie-goer. Eye candy reigns supreme in DMC to the point where it is tiring to the brain. Of course, to the brain, special effects are like cotton candy, flat soda and carbohydrates. Plot and character development are protein. So, if I understand the procedure, watching this movie is something like indoctrination into a cult.
The story in DMC is not only flat-lining but the writer's seem to put a pillow over its face and suffocate it entirely in an effort to bring in other elements so as to see more special effects.
I am pretty easy-going about the idea of suspended disbelief when seeing movies, especially fantasy type movies. However, in one particularly insulting sequence of DMC it takes longer for a giant wheel to roll down the side of a mountain and into the bay than it does for the other characters to run there on foot while fighting with other characters.
Of course Johnny Depp is funny and always interesting to watch. Not as a character in this movie, but just as a human exhibit. Sort of like staring at a social freak in the airport. His character provided exactly two moments of comic relief in this film. Other than that one was just watching him move about in his ambiguously-sexually-oriented strut. Does everyone in France walk like that? Or does he just think that all pirates strode about in a manner that made law-abiding citizens wonder if the rumors about pirate sexual preference were true or not?
All that aside, the most insulting aspect of this movie is that we are not supposed to recognize the fact that the poor excuse for writing is really just a rip-off of the first Star Wars trilogy. Let's see, that would be Star Wars episodes IV, V and VI. (As if George Lucas really had all six episodes in his head and decided to start with episode IV. Yeah, the story sure seemed tightly written in that regard. Uh-huh. But I digress.)
DMC and Empire Strikes Back (ESB) have a lot in common.
Three lead heroes --
ESB: Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo.
DMC: Will Turner, Elizabeth Swan, Jack Sparrow.
A couple of evil villians --
ESB: Darth Vader and The Emporer
DMC: Norrington (?) and Lord Beckett
Let's see . . . the need for wisdom from an outside authority --
ESB: Yoda, who lives in a weird, lush swamp
DMC: Tia Dalma, who lives in a weird, lush swamp
Oh, and the need for a cliff hanger to make sure the next part of the story will be a box-office must --
ESB: Han Solo frozen in carbonite
DMC: Jack Sparrow swallowed by the Kraken
Someone assist lead the expedition to save the imperiled hero --
ESB: Lando Calrissian
DMC: Captain Barbossa
Background cannon fodder of the evil side --
ESB: cookie-cutter, faceless stormtroopers whose death has no emotional pull on the audience
DMC: inept, enslaved and quasi-dead pirates who don't have free will or sufficient talent to seek other roles (they were probably 90% CG anyway)
Comic relief from idiotic sideshow freaks patterned after Laurel & Hardy --
ESB: C3PO and R2D2
DMC: Ragetti and Pintel
It goes on, but my mind throbs in protest of the memories.
Still, just a couple o' more . . .
Who will make mountains of money from this mediocre story set against a spectacular special effects production --
ESB: George Lucas (who now sees the possibilities of episodes I, II and III materialize)
DMC: Disney (who now sees the possibilities of more movie-based rides and ride-based movies)
Who will shell out money to see these future productions --
ESB: Me and the general population (though I was more and more disappointed as the series drug on)
DMC: The general population, but not me (unless of course I accompany the lovely wife or suffer exposure to a memory-altering Disney ray)
posted by TT | 8:06 AM
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