Yo ho, Yo ho, A Pirate’s Movie for Me
I have to admit I was worried about Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. I thought the first one was delightful. I saw it twice in the theater; I bought the soundtrack and swashbuckled around the house, accompanied by my leaping cat. But the trailer for Pirates 2 didn’t look that great—and then the reviews started coming out yesterday. The first one I saw was Entertainment Weekly’s review, which absolutely panned it, giving it a D+. EW critic Lisa Schwarzbaum described the movie as ”a theme ride, if by ride you mean a hellish contraption into which a ticket holder is strapped, overstimulated but unsatisfied, and unable to disengage until the operator releases the restraining harness.” Ouch.
Most other reviews I read beforehand painted Pirates 2 in various shades of mediocrity.
I am pleased to say that the reviewers were wrong. Many of them didn’t like the first Pirates either, so they lack authority. They also must be completely opposed to fun.
Because that’s what Pirates of the Caribbean is. Fun. There’s swordfighting. There’s a pirate who struts and staggers around like a certain rocker who fell out of a palm tree earlier this year. There are great supporting characters hammed up by Britain’s best (For example, Mackenzie Crook—Gareth of BBC’s “The Office”—plays the pirate whose eyeball keeps popping out—in Pirates 2, he finds himself debating his partner-in-comedy about predestination and the etymology of mythological words. Jack Davenport—Steve Taylor in BBC’s “Coupling”—reprises his role as Commodore Norrington—with some twists.) And did I mention that there’s an undead monkey?
Yes, that was all in the first Pirates, too. But I don’t find it tiring. In fact, I think I may have laughed even more at this Pirates than at the first one. I’d been in a foul mood much of the day because bulldozers had been felling trees in sight of my window, and the movie was a very welcome distraction. And as far as I’m concerned, it gets extra points for not harming any of its animal characters (points I definitely can’t award to Superman Returns).
Speaking of Superman Returns, New York Times critic A.O. Scott, whose writing I love even when I disagree with his verdict, summarized my feelings precisely: “What is curious about the recent crop of high-tech blockbusters is how seriously they take themselves, and unlike, say, Superman Returns, Dead Man’s Chest cannot be called pretentious. It makes no claims to being about good and evil, the difficulty of saving the world in the modern era, or the inner lives of any of its characters.”
Now, as somebody who spends way too much time analyzing the movies’ ethics, I love Pirates because there are no ethics to analyze. When Elizabeth Swann says to Jack, “There will come a moment when you have the chance to do the right thing,” Jack replies breezily, “I love those moments. I like to wave at them as they pass by.” (Which actually is very similar to a quip about deadlines that Douglas Adams once penned.)
The movie does, of course, have its noble goober Orlando Bloom, who you want to pat on the head even as you laugh at his completely serious delivery of pompous lines something like, “I have promised to avenge my father, and I must.” On the subject of Orlando, I must once again quote A.O. Scott: “Mr. Bloom, as is his custom, leaps about, trying to overcome his incurable blandness, and is upstaged by special effects, musical cues, octopus tentacles and pieces of wood.”
That has to be one of the best sentences I’ve ever read in a movie review. (Sorry, Minklet—no offense to your regard for Mr. Pretty Boy.)
Anyway, don’t trust the critics on this one. Sure, Pirates has its flaws, but it’s worth them. For fun.
9 comments July 7th, 2006