Get It Off Your (Dead Man's) Chest: Pirates Movie Reviews

[Alex]

That's true, but I never assume that brilliant on TV means brilliant in movies.

[wendybeth]

I have a confession to make: I actually want to see the new Will Ferral movie. (Talageda Nights? The Ballad of Ricky-Bob? I forget the name, but he plays a racecar driver).

[Cadaverous Pallor]

F.ck Barbossa. He's dead.

[innerSpaceman]

That was the greeniest, green apple I've ever seen. A magic apple if ever there was (since it, um, magically appeared in Barbossa's hand as he died, even though he'd spent the last hour sword fighting).


I may be pissed at Barbossa's ressurection, but it is the only element I'm excited about for the third film. Fu ck Davy Jones is what I say. Cool looking CG character, but I can't get any feeling from that nearly as much as I can from a real face performance. Sorry, just can't.


I'm intrigued by the concept of Sparrow revealing more of his true nature in being such a pathetic coward. That may be so, but how does it make me want to see any more of him? I took such a dislike to him and to E. Swann because of the nasty, cruel actions they took that my affection for their characters has dried up.

Jeez, Geoffrey Rush is literally the only thing I'm looking forward to the third movie about.


I think I will see Dead Man's Chest again, though. It had some fun stuff. Now that I know all about its clumsy overplotting and mythological reliance and art/effects direction-driven story choices and less artful dialogue and big-is-more silly setpieces halfheartedly realized ... well, I just may be able to enjoy it on its own terms of half-baked blockbusterhood.

[Alex]

I was reading an interview with the screen writers and they felt pretty strongly that they hadn't changed the Sparrow character with his actions in this movie. Nor do they fele they "revealed" any new element to his character in this movie. Simply that in the first movie the goals of Sparrow, Swann, and Turner were mostly in synch and in this movie they are most decidedly not.

Whether they are correct or not is certainly debatable, but that is their point of view on it.

[wendybeth]

I don't think they have changed him- some time has passed, and the Captain has other things going on, like his survival. He is every bit the same character, and that might be the problem. The other characters have changed, some a great deal (Norrington) and the Captain remains the same self-centered, staggering scoundrel that he was in the first movie. Maybe they needed to change him a bit, or maybe they have and we just don't realise it yet.

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

I was reading an interview with the screen writers and they felt pretty strongly that they hadn't changed the Sparrow character with his actions in this movie. Nor do they fele they "revealed" any new element to his character in this movie. Simply that in the first movie the goals of Sparrow, Swann, and Turner were mostly in synch and in this movie they are most decidedly not.

Whether they are correct or not is certainly debatable, but that is their point of view on it.

I agree with them, actually. I don't think they messed with Sparrow's characterization, or any other's for that matter.

He's a friggin' pirate. They've glossed pirates up enough to make them likeable, but if your'e not going to portray them as self-serving, I might as well be watching Master and Commander. I can easily believe in a fictional character who is, on some level, a good man, but who is also capable of great cowardice. So long as he, in the end, does the right/good thing, he's a libertine worth watching.

Same goes with Swann. I actually like what they did with her character, because it's in line with her longstanding fascination with pirates, and with her overwhelming desire to not be locked in gilded cages. And I can understand her not wanting to lose her life, or the crews lives, and deciding to sacrifice the pirate she's got the lusties for since, after all, hes' the one responsible for getting them into these messes in the first place.

I'm very curious to see what will happen in the next film. My guess is more betrayals, more questioned loyalties, and ultimately an alliance formed to save themselves and those they care about. This film is more of a moral quagmire than the first, which may hurt the characters likeability a bit for some, but I'd be even more bored watching the three get along perfectly well for two movies.

[innerSpaceman]

Yes, but I feel their quarrels and backstabbing are so transparently designed to create an artificial arc.

And I don't mind Sparrow being a bit of a coward, but he's so yellow-bellied that I cannot buy him as a pirate captain. He's simply Jack Sparrow to me now ... no matter how much he protests the lack of his honorific title to which I feel he is no longer entitled.


And I don't know why Elizabeth thinks the Kraken is after Jack. The ship she was on that was Krackenattacked didn't even have so much as his hat aboard. Either way, condemning him to death by her own hand was a nastiness I simply could not swallow.


And I have to question why the screenwriters chose to have a two-and-half hour follow-up movie that revealed nothing new about the main character. What frelling hacks! Not that the film they scripted would have me suspect otherwise, but jeeeez!

[Alex]

Well, Elizabeth doesn't knowthe second kraken attack happened so it couldn't well argue against her understanding of what the kraken is after

[Moonliner]

I've been thinking about Barbosa coming back and the line from the first movie that went something like:

A ship captained by a man so evil that hell itself spat him back out.


Hummm....