RE: The Pirates of the Caribbean review thread
-
Jul 10, 2003 12:54
**SPOILERS**
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I just woke up, and now that I' m more awake, but drowsy as hell, I think I finally realized PoTC was the best movie I' ve seen thus far this year!
Before my killer fanboyism wouldn' t allow any movie to be placed above X2, but PoTC just have so much more going for it that I couldn' t help but to cave in. T3 was hella good, but it was just an action flick. Little thought given to character development or plot. Still an awesome good movie, but didn' t give much substance overall. Matrix Reloaded, again, the plot was paper thin. Aside from the few times when they did actually talk about the Matrix in the movie, the plot was weak, and again, downright shallow character development.
*waits for the onslaught of M2 fans who won' t let anyone speak badly about their god. . . *
But I feel that PoTC gave me everything. Good plot, character development, Jack Sparrow, adventuring, pretty good action scenes, Jack Sparrow, humor, Jack Sparrow, and finally, Jack Sparrow.
Seriously, Johnny Depp as a pirate just out acted every other actor this summer (if not this year). Because of how " out there" his character was, he' s not going to be getting nominated for any awards any time soon, but Johnny played his role well. Too well.
As for the movie itself, it started off slow (to me), but it ended extremely well. Even with the spoilers banner up there, I' m not going to give away too much of the plot. All you really need to know is that as a child, Elizabeth (the main female actor) finds a black pearl around a child' s neck that was floating in the river and takes it (there' s a reason why but I' m not telling). The child is called William Turner (Orlando Bloom/Legolas), and it' s because of his past that brings about most of the drama in the movie. Oh, and I guess that pearl too. Hence calling it " The Curse of the Black Pearl." Although technically, the pearl is more gold anyway, but who am I to argue? :p
From there we get a time jump and suddenly everyone is nice and grown up. William has become a blacksmith, and Elizabeth’s father is the governor so needless to say Elizabeth was out of William’s price range. It is also after this time jump that we’re introduced to good ol’ Captain Jack Sparrow. The way he makes his entrance is amazing by itself. You’d have to see it so you can laugh too.
Now, Elizabeth is out of William’s price range, but not out of the price range of the lead officer, Norrington. He asks her to marry him, but sends the smallest corset humanly possible. In what becomes a running joke, Elizabeth passes out falls into the ocean, but Jack is there to rescue her thus getting himself involved.
Unfortunately, everyone in their momma seems to hate pirates, and Jack is immediately arrested the second they get to shore. As Jack sits in prison, the crap hits the fan and the pirates of the Black Pearl enter town. From there it’s a big action scene and the pirates capture Elizabeth thus leading to Jack and William heading off to rescue her. I’m also not saying how Jack gets out of prison, so ha!
Now, what I loved about the movie was that Jack is such a deep and intriguing character. He’s written 20x better than anyone else in the movie. Not to say no one else in the movie does a good job, or that anyone acts bad, but Jack definitely steals the show easily. His overwhelming personality, charm, and more importantly, his wit seems to shine in just about every scene he’s in.
Like I said before, the movie started slow, but by the end we see Jack wheels, deals, and flat out ownz everyone in that movie that it’s almost like Jack is the movie. The plot and storyline are so much better thanks to Jack. And I don’t want it to sound like I’m over hyping his role, but Jack is very important to the twist and turns the movie takes. A part of the reason why Jack was kicked off his original ship was that he was always trying to deal with people instead of flat out killing them, and watching Jack trying to out-strategize any and everything is a treat upon itself.
When I got up this morning, and the more I thought about it, PoTC was just the best movie I’ve seen thus far this year. Well, it’s the best “big budget summer flickâ€. I hated the Hulk. X2 was awesome but it’s not PoTC. Same for T3. And M2 had way too many flaws for me to care about. Even though I find the history of the Matrix to be intriguing as hell, the movie simply wasn’t. PoTC does it for me. I absolutely love that movie.
If I had to give it a score, it’d get 4 out of 5 stars. And I’m really leaning towards 4 and a half.
P.S. Still to sleepy to check for errors, so ha!