Who would have thought it? An anti-hero swaggered up to the plate and crushed a pitch past anything managed by the likes of Spider-Man or Darth Vader. The box office title was grabbed because the public is apparently frothing at the mouth for more Johnny Depp.
Granted, Depp's performance in Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl as the pirate Captain Jack Sparrow was nothing short of brilliant, appropriately nabbing him an Oscar nomination. But I don't think I'm alone in being shocked at just how much that performance excited people. Clearly amongst those surprised are the writers and director of the sequel, who would have made sure to put a lot more of Depp in the movie if they had suspected the level of his popularity in the role. Instead they went the standard route of sequels and made everything bigger and flashier except for the characters, who get second billing to the latest wizardry of ILM. Now don't go calling me a snob for saying something like that. I may have become somewhat jaded as a critic but every year I still get excited about the summer season; anxiously hoping for that tasty bit of eye candy that will make me feel like a kid all over again. That's why the original Pirates of the Caribbean earned a spot on my top ten list for the year. I had an absolute blast with that film, as much intoxicated by the special effects as Depp's wildly original pirate creation.
What I wanted out of a sequel was more Depp, the same amount of effects and a bit less of Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley. I like both of those actors but here they are so far out of their league it's hard to find words to express it. And I do not mean that as an insult. I speak more to Depp's brilliance than any perceived shortcomings for his young co-stars. That said, Knightley has a few moments where she almost rises to his level. And to say the camera loves her is like saying there's a little water in this movie. There's a shot of her standing on deck with the tri-cornered hat and her hair down that could be placed in the Louvre. Some guy a few rows behind audibly spit out "She's so fucking hot." Well said my man.
Was there more Depp in this one? In screen time certainly. As a percentage of the actual length of the movie, no. We get a lot of time dedicated to Bill Nighy's voice as the elemental Davy Jones. I say voice because I believe the actual physical performance belonged to an ILM computer. He's an impressive beasty certainly, with a head that is mostly octopus, the tentacles forming his beard, a lobster claw and who knows how many other crustaceans. Nighy's one of the great character actors but he's a bit wasted here as we only hear him. We also get Stellan Skarsgård as Bootstrap Bill Turner, the father of Orlando Bloom's character. I've heard him referred to as the Swedish Christopher Walken, which makes him pretty much always a welcome figure in a movie. That's what I do love about these movies, the way the smaller bits are filled with great character actors, which gives the movie a lot more texture.
I don't know about you but in the time since the first film, I've grown a little fuzzy on the plot details and some of the lesser characters. This is a problem as the sequel integrates them and relies on them, leaving me feeling a bit lost from time to time. No matter though, this is not a movie for heavy thought but instead for almost cartoonish action and comedy. It buzzes wildly from set piece to set piece, subplot to subplot, minor character to minor character and never ever pauses to take a breath or let you give much thought to what you've just seen. In other words, you get your money's worth. Seriously. Clocking in somewhere around two and a half hours long, they throw everything imaginable at the screen and managed to get most of it to stick. Scenes like the giant hamster wheel and the fruit kabob will stick in your head for a long time along with Davy Jones' beard, and about three quarters of Depp's one liners. That is if you aren't worn out by all of it. Personally, my ass was completely asleep by the end of the second hour.
Be warned though, this is a movie with no ending. Well, more accurately, it has an ending, you just can't see it until 2007, when the second sequel will appear in theaters (the two sequel were shot consecutively). So make sure to study up on the DVD's of the first two films before it comes out so you can claim to have some vague idea of what's going on.
- This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Comments