So, you're probably wondering why I haven't posted anything about Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End yet, since I'm such a pirate fiend and all. Well, I saw it on opening night, May 25, and liked it. Better than Dead Man's Chest, but not as good as Curse of the Black Pearl. It left me in a much different mood than did the other two, however. When I left the theater after seeing the first two, I was totally pumped. Ready to do a little buckling and swashing myself. After I saw At World's End, I was sort of quiet and contemplative. But I thought it might have been because I had to head straight to my icky job from the theater, and that was enough of a downer to kill my mood. So I wanted to wait to blog about it until I'd seen it again, and was planning to go see it the following Tuesday with ED. But that fell through.So I went to see it tonight with Cowboy. And I agree with my first assessment, that it's funnier and better than the second, but not as good as the first. But I ended up in the exact same contemplative mood at the end, so I guess that's how this one leaves me.
Anyway, Johnny was much less silly this time around, back to being seriously funny. Loved Keith Richards' appearance, wish he had more scenes. And I think my hands-down favorite part is when Barbossa, Elizabeth, and Jack meet up with Will, Davy, and the evil East India Co. dude to have a parley. They land on opposite ends of this sand spit thingie and the music goes all Ennio Morricone (think A Fistful of Dollars), and they do the slow-mo swagger-toward-each-other thing. Love it.
And once again, Johnny Depp was the hottest, but Orlando Bloom got more studly even than the last one -- and I'm not really an Orli fan! But starting with the aforementioned parley showdown, he just got cool. Like he finally figured out how to walk in his boots or something. The little earring helped too.
Anyway, it got two Warheads because it got a little slow in the middle and I actually unwrapped a second piece of candy. So not magnificent, but not shabby either.
I didn't enjoy this movie much at all. Way too many things happening! Though Geoffrey Rush was cool, he did better than Johnny sometimes!
ReplyDeleteHow weird that I never saw this comment back in 2007! Hmm. Possibly because I had a baby a month later. Anyway, sorry you didn't enjoy it, whoever you were.
DeleteI don't what your throguhts are on the later two films but man, they really should have just left it at three. The fifth at least doesn't feel quite so lifeless as the woeful fourth film - but man, the spark is just gone, isn't it? In DMC and AWE, I feel like everybody's heart is still in it, the performances are lively, the characters are memorable, the action is creative and grandiose and the stakes feel real.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the fifth film, I think it is by far Depp's worst go-round in the series. I'm not sure if it's his performance or actually the way the character was pitched this time around (maybe they were actively going for him being sort of washed-up and past his prime?). But man, Jack Sparrow is just sad to watch in the fifth film. He was always a bit off-kilter but in this one he just feels like a bumbling incompetent loser. And drunk. I mean, I know he's always a bit drunk, but man, he seemed absolutely sloshed for the entire duration of the film. In the past ones, even in OST, you always got the sense that beneath that layer of rum, he was sharp, smart, on top of things, always trying to work an angle or manipulate things to his advantage or improvise his way out of a sticky spot at a moment's notice. I get none of that out of him by film 5, and as someone for whom Jack Sparrow was legitimately one of my silver screen heroes growing up, it's honestly kind of depressing to see him so off his game there.
I haven't seen the fifth one yet, but I've seen the fourth one a couple times and rather enjoyed it. Never up to the mark of the original, but one can only catch lightning in the bottle so many times, right?
Delete