The first Pirates film benefited from low (almost non-existent) expectations. Disney, clearly with one eye on the film and the other on their feud with Michael Eisner, was distracted just enough to allow Jerry Bruckheimer to hire that guy who made The Ring (Gore Verbinski) and allow him to cast Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow (as opposed to, say, Tim Allen). Depp, who had clearly spent too many years in France (how else does one explain Chocolat?), had the good sense to recognize that the idea of making a movie based on one of the most overrated rides in all the lands of Disney had to have been a joke, so why not have a laugh (seriously, shouldn’t Space Mountain have been the first choice, followed quickly by The Hall of Presidents: War on Terror). And us moviegoers were fortunate Disney, once they started paying attention to what Verbinski and Depp were doing, allowed fiscal minds (accountants) to prevail: re-shoots would have been a bitch. Those were good times: Depp had finally created a character as iconic as his pale barber with the hand problems, we believed Orlando Bloom could act, and it was good to see Natalie Portman working again. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, through a freak accident (radiation had to have been present), functioned the way a good Disney ride did: it kept you cool, moved at a brisk and accelerating pace, and made you want to buy a t-shirt after. The film made two things clear: with regard to acting, Depp could be right about his flourishes every now and then, and with directing, Verbinski was the reason The Ring was better than it should have been. I’m not sure what happened in the second movie, but I remember emerging from the theater much the way Neo emerged from that energy pod in the first Matrix film: frightfully exposed, somehow drained of energy with a slight body ache (concentrated in the lower back), and facing a large machine covered in blinking lights (in all likelihood a Rav-4). And once free, like Neo, I reflected on my time in the Matrix (I mean, Prates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest) as being trapped in a highly stylized and artificial world that seemed real, but carried an unexplained hollowness; and that, the more time I spent with the film, the more I began to question its believability and became willing to do anything to escape—damn the nine bucks. Believability shouldn’t be a concern when discussing a summer movie in which the Big Bad wears squid tentacles for eye-liner, but is it completely unreasonable to expect some kind of order in the universe, even if it is just a summer ride?
It isn’t a revelation to say that Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End is no better. I’d tell you what the movie was about, but I hardly know. So much talk about deals, followed by talk about breaking deals, that I couldn’t help but feel that familiar ache in my lower back (the film is nearly 3 hours). But I had already left the Matrix/Pirates universe once and, upon reentering, found myself less than sympathetic to the beautiful artifice I had known. Who couldn’t help but look at the smeared tans on the actor’s faces and not be emboldened by the falseness of it all? And so soon after Shrek and Spider-Man? Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us. Fool us thrice, shame on… studios and toy companies and cereals? This shouldn’t happen. With a list that includes Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Chow Yun-Fat, Natalie Portman (nay, Kiera Knightly), and that skinny guy from the British version of The Office—not to mention Verbiski, who despite the creaking plot, can still stage a beautiful shot—it couldn’t be that bad could it? Yes, yes it could. Many people have blamed Bloom for all the dead air (sans Depp), when the real people to be blamed are the teenage girls who spend so much money and fawn over his newest hair-style. He’s such a non-factor in this film that, at the beginning of the film, Verbinski has to be reminded that he's left Bloom submerged in a giant washbin, and it’s no pun to say that it takes a near death experience to make Bloom come alive as an actor. Knightly is fine, even when plagarizing Mel Gibson's freedom speech in Braveheart. And I’ll swear till I’m dead that Geoffery Rush is a pirate who merely plays an actor in his spare time. But it is the plot that is the elephant in the room, and when, towards the end of the movie, the filmmakers decide to shoot their most charismatic character (the monkey) out of a cannon, FOR NO APPARENT REASON, the end is nigh. Is it then hypocritical to think that there may be life after death? If more of these films are made (and, well, come on…), I suggest abandoning the long adopted Star Wars model of “trilogies”, and take a page from Star Trek, or Spider-Man, or, better yet, James Bond: single episodic films that offer a complete adventure, with Depp the unquestioned sole lead of import. At least with this tactic the audience can easily cleanse our pallets after a bad apple and say, “Here’s hoping the next one doesn’t suck.”
2 comments:
A treatise in the defense of Orlando Bloom (aka That Super Sexy Elf)
I think it is worth pointing out that it is a bit unfair to say that sexy-buns Orlando is at fault for this dismal movie. I think Sean makes it clear that the fault is in the writing, however, one should note the inherent problems in Will's character that make it impossible for Orlando to actually make a meaningful contribution to the movie.
Let's start with the first movie: in it we learn that pirates are scary, horrible, and completely untrustworthy yet still have a greater sense of decency than the British Government (aka "the man"). Awesome. In the second movie, we learn that sticking it to "the man" is not the only thing pirates must deal with. They also must deal with giant sea monsters and mortality. Sticking it to these two things is somehow less gratifying. Plus, the pirates somehow get "cute." In the third movie we open with a grisly scene: a seemingly endless line of scruffy looking people are being hanged as a snooty representative of "the man" reads aloud a piece of paper denying the right to trial to anyone who is or is associated with a pirate. So we have our grand analogy: the British are fascists and the pirates, somehow representative of the "poor", are the freedom fighters. Or, in a more contemporary bent: the British are the Americans and the pirates are nation-less freedom fighters swooping into Iraq. Except that the pirates aren't scary or even that bad, they're just eccentric. No raping and pillaging here. One thing is clear: the conflict is global, the lines have been drawn. Kira Knightly (Che, Marx, Mel Gibson) has chosen her side. So who the fuck is Will Turner?
See, the issue is that in the first movie Will was one of the really good guys who finds out he has bad blood, embraces said bad blood for a good cause. Wins the girl, finds some friends, learns to live life on the edge while still being a goody two shoes. In movie number two Will continues to be "bad" and we are supposed to assume this is for a good reason, but, its not quite clear. Plus he's not really bad at all. He just sword-fights. So, by the third movie that is turning notions of "good" and "bad" on their heads and includes a weak attempt at depth, what is the role of Will? How does his need to rescue his father from the bad guys working for the good guys who are actually bad ("the man") play into the larger theme of sticking it to the man and mortality (the big sea monster being dead and all)?
There are a few wimpy hints that Will is "bad" as he keeps things to himself and makes side deals, but, ultimately, he is somehow a "noble" man. The equivalent to a mercenary who cannot tell a lie. My opinion? if the writers had balls and this wasn't Disney, Will would have gone all out bad. He thinks the woman he loves wants Jack. His father who abandoned him is a barnacle. He gave up his promising career as a blacksmith to be a pirate and Kira Knightly doesn't care. He should have become a total bad-ass. It would have been hot. He should have joined up with a side opposite Kira and double-crossed her. He should have run around with wenches and stolen a British ship. Then, right at the very end, his ultra-sexy badness would have come in handy, and Kira would have wanted him because she obviously goes for bad boys, and poor Orlando would have had a character, a challenge. Instead he was as integral to the movie as the parrot that sits on that pirate's shoulder. Poor Orlando, he did his best with what he was given.
every now and then i slap myself to make sure i'm not in the theatre still.
two thumbs down.
aaron d baron
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