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Pleasure to meet your carbuncle!
Saw Pirates this weekend. Which, I just read, had the biggest opening weekend box office in Hollywood history. Also? First film in history to top $100 million in 2 days.
So, I liked it. I thought it was glorious, silly fun. But, it wasn't really very good, was it? The first movie, I think is genuinely good. This one was just fun, and depended very much on my considerable good will towards the franchise as its basis. It's very much a middle. I don't mind some threads needing to carry over to Pirates 3, but I think there were a few too many. I mean, I'm going to see it again and all, so I clearly wasn't that bothered.
That said, I love Johnny Depp, but Bill Nighy and Stellan Skaarsgaard stole the movie this time around. Keira Knightley was better this time around, I think. They gave her more to do. Also, Norrington got HOT. Mrrrorw. Desperation and rock bottom are quite tasty on him.
Can I ask for a plot clarification from someone who has seen the movie? It's about the dead man's chest. Ok, I get that it's Davy Jones heart, and why various people are after it (to control the seas, or for leverage, etc). Here's what I don't get, and I think it is because I found the gyspy queen, or whoever she was, a little hard to understand. Ok, so he loved a girl...and then he tore his still-beating heart out. Why, exactly? What was the connection? Did he get his heart broken, or was it to prove his eternal love, or what? I totally missed that. Please please someone explain it to me!
My favorite part about the whole thing was the bad guys. Y'all have seen how awesome Davy Jones looks, right?
I loved just thinking about how some production designers and costume guys and makeup artists and special effects guys and set designers got together and just got to let their imagination loose and ended up with something SO FUCKING AWESOME as Davy Jones and his crew. I mean, as far as I know, they had nothing to base it on, so it was just something they thought up. And I cracked myself up thinking about the set designer telling his crew, "This looks great, everyone, we're on the right track, but we need more barnacles. MORE BARNACLES!"
In World Cup news, I completely forgot the game was yesterday and didn't watch. I would have rooted for France, so oh well. In case anyone is wondering, France is totally not mad at Zizou as far as I can tell from the TV news and the French newspapers. They still worship him. Some people are saying that it just makes him human, and that he had nerves of steel most of his career, so he was due for a little fraying. Most people are speculating about what the Italian guy must have said. The most common theories after racism is that he said something about his mom. And you know what? I kind of love that no matter where you go in the world, a good "your mom" joke is never too far away. It's a small world after all, indeed.
So, I liked it. I thought it was glorious, silly fun. But, it wasn't really very good, was it? The first movie, I think is genuinely good. This one was just fun, and depended very much on my considerable good will towards the franchise as its basis. It's very much a middle. I don't mind some threads needing to carry over to Pirates 3, but I think there were a few too many. I mean, I'm going to see it again and all, so I clearly wasn't that bothered.
That said, I love Johnny Depp, but Bill Nighy and Stellan Skaarsgaard stole the movie this time around. Keira Knightley was better this time around, I think. They gave her more to do. Also, Norrington got HOT. Mrrrorw. Desperation and rock bottom are quite tasty on him.
Can I ask for a plot clarification from someone who has seen the movie? It's about the dead man's chest. Ok, I get that it's Davy Jones heart, and why various people are after it (to control the seas, or for leverage, etc). Here's what I don't get, and I think it is because I found the gyspy queen, or whoever she was, a little hard to understand. Ok, so he loved a girl...and then he tore his still-beating heart out. Why, exactly? What was the connection? Did he get his heart broken, or was it to prove his eternal love, or what? I totally missed that. Please please someone explain it to me!
My favorite part about the whole thing was the bad guys. Y'all have seen how awesome Davy Jones looks, right?
I loved just thinking about how some production designers and costume guys and makeup artists and special effects guys and set designers got together and just got to let their imagination loose and ended up with something SO FUCKING AWESOME as Davy Jones and his crew. I mean, as far as I know, they had nothing to base it on, so it was just something they thought up. And I cracked myself up thinking about the set designer telling his crew, "This looks great, everyone, we're on the right track, but we need more barnacles. MORE BARNACLES!"
In World Cup news, I completely forgot the game was yesterday and didn't watch. I would have rooted for France, so oh well. In case anyone is wondering, France is totally not mad at Zizou as far as I can tell from the TV news and the French newspapers. They still worship him. Some people are saying that it just makes him human, and that he had nerves of steel most of his career, so he was due for a little fraying. Most people are speculating about what the Italian guy must have said. The most common theories after racism is that he said something about his mom. And you know what? I kind of love that no matter where you go in the world, a good "your mom" joke is never too far away. It's a small world after all, indeed.
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Pirates spoiler
Re: Pirates spoiler
And then the whole love-scorned heartbroken thing makes less sense, because why would he have a softspot if he got his heart ripped out figuratively before doing it literally. At least, that is what I thought was going on there, but I could be crazy.
I clearly need to see it again, because I'm confused about the motivation right there.
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Heh. The whole loving something and as a consequence making decisions about your actual, physical heart thing makes me think of Untamed Heart. When he doesn't want heart replacement surgery, because he might not love her the same afterwards?
Hehehh. That's funny now, but made me weepy when I was 13.
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Things that would have made me like the movie more:
40% less Kraken ("If it's awesome the first time, imagine how awesome it'll be the THIRD time!")
50% more coherent, story-centered plot ("Here are six tasks for the four characters to complete! The audience won't notice that the script reads like a to-do list! Ready: GO!")
20% louder and less sloshy line readings from Johnny Depp. He was less iconic than in the first installment -- I couldn't remember any of his lines from the sequel after seeing it, though I remember liking a few of them.
100% less MAGIC NEGRO. This was really what killed the movie for me. I know the Pirates franchise isn't about race relations in the Imperial Caribbean, but if you're going to have one main black character, for the love of god don't go to the magic negro place with her! If she gets a back story and interiority in the third movie, I'll take back half of this complaint.
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Have you seen this review of the movie? (http://www.askaninja.com/node/1175) Hehehehhe. I really wish the plot had been more coherent, too. I don't mind lots of threads, really I don't, but I shouldn't be confused by a frickin Disney movie!
As for Johnny Depp, I agree with what I read in one review, I think in the Washington Post. His performance in the first movie is so surprising compared to the expected pirate schtick, that's it's really a bit thrilling and feels subversive somehow. Like, at first you're all, dude, I can't believe he's getting away with this in a Disney movie! Because it is not the movie/performance you thought you would see in a big budget action popcorn blockbuster. And you're rooting for Johnny Depp's vision for POTC to win over Disney's POTC. And because he is a morally and sexually ambiguous central character, it is just AWESOME and COOL. And it really was a bit of a struggle to get the movie made how he wanted Jack Sparrow to be, and some of the producers passed down notes that he was supposed to stop with "all the faggotty stuff." (I read EW, I know these things.)
This time around, there's no thrill of the unexepected or subversive, because Disney execs, knowing fan reaction and not being dumb, threw the weight of the studio/movie squarely behind him. So now it's not Johnny Depp's vision for POTC, it's Johnny Depp's vision for POTC as appropriated by studio execs and marketed for the masses.
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So, I take it you missed all the hints that Tia Dalma is the woman Davy Jones fell in love with? And that she's most likely been playing everyone since she traded Jack the compass?
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Then again, I hoped for the same thing in the Matrix movies and got let down big-time. Fingers crossed!
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*makes a note for second viewing*
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