Pirates of the Carribean II
Jul. 7th, 2006 03:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackSquee.
I was very pleasantly surprised by the first film. A blockbuster based on an amusement park ride just was not destined to be good, but it was. Thus, when there were two sequels filmed at the same timeby the son of the original author to such a film, I expected it would go on breaking the mold, and apparently so.
I felt that the right amount of time had passed between this film and the previous. Neither skipping ten years into the future when most of the characters are dead, nor trying to pretend all this was planned during the last film, it fell into place well, and what all the characters were doing now made sense.
The slapstick in first third was hilarious. I thought "I can't believe they're doing that" with the big ball but it all made sense, and was an extended but not too long treat. And where Jack jumps the cliff I was actually broken down laughing to the point where I started coughing, and there was some spontaneous applause from the cinema.
The metaphysics (eg. who Davey Jones was, the deals he made, the powers he had, etc) all seemed right, both inevitable, balanced and consistent. Embarassingly as in the last film, I was slightly confused when the first revelations were made, but I think it all hung together. And well explained things from the first film (eg. if/how the Black Pearl was supernatural) that were technically left dangling, but not so much they had been unsatisfying.
I'm always very impressed when a book manages some reasonably innovative metaphysics, rather than, eg. having the same vampires in every film, and quite impressed. It's a fairly rich universe here, though probably only as much plot, characters, and magic were introduced as were explored, so there's not that much room for fanfiction.
The second third, with Davey Jones' ship, was really really creepy. It actually made me shiver, which very few non-horror films manage. The idea (condemned to 100 years service instead of death and judgement) made sense, neither too horrific to be filmable (as is my problem with films about hell like "What dreams may come") nor too funny to be interesting. The dice game was suspensful, the whipping was painful, the other damned sailors seemed a perfect depiction of rotted barnacle damned.
The last third, from when Will escapes, was entertaining, but I had a few problems. It's weird that now everything's in sunshine Jones and his crew are so much less creepy.
Some of the humour was just a bit too blatant: some of the comments by the thin and fat pirates were just jokes, not really things they'd say, and the mill wheel was great chutzpah and humour, but over the top.
The three way swordfight was great, and I'm glad they ended up there, but I thought they could have set it up more. As it is it felt too abrupt that all of a sudden the three men don't even try to collaberate against the devil and then stab each other in the back later -- as they have before -- but just whale it out with swords. Though never even cutting each other.
In fact, Jack's lost some of his mystique. Because he was *so wonderful* in the last film, you're not actually sure where to put him in this. He seems to seesaw a bit between villain and hero, without the loveable rogue evetually redeemed thing from the first film, which makes it harder to love him.
I'm really glad Norrington came back. It would have been so easy to leave him out, or make him evil, or just the same staid commodore, but I thought it added a lot to him to show him failing, and releasing his feelings, and then later making a hard choice to recover what he'd lost. But that said, it seemed abrupt that it happened almost all at the end, when he might have been able to stab them earlier or later.
Did I mention that Lord whatsisname was quite good? It's actually a reasonably ingenious plot. Controlling the Flying Dutchman, and hence all the waves, actually would be about amount to controlling the world then, and he managed to implement it with really very little risk to himself!
Also, I loved the governor. He also was a bit bumbling but nice in the last film, but here you see him equally affable, but definitely showing the decision of character necessary to get his position.
The ending was a bit gratuitous, but I was pleased to see Barbarossa, and do look forward to #3!
We sat through the credits from respect, and the possibility of an extra scene. And a nice young man came and apologised and asked if we knew there was going to be, because his girlfriend said there was, but if anyone stayed because of that, he didn't want to get lynched too if there wasn't. Actually, there was a very brief but worth it scene, though, as I'm normally the absolute worst person I know at seeing obvious humour coming[1][2], I was slgihtly chuffed to realise it was a scene I expected since a third of the way through.
[1] It's quite nice. I get to be amused more. But feel stupid when everyone else knows what's going to happen in HP and I don't. THough I'm sure they're not *always* right.
[2] I did call Mousetrap correctly from about the first interval though :)
I was very pleasantly surprised by the first film. A blockbuster based on an amusement park ride just was not destined to be good, but it was. Thus, when there were two sequels filmed at the same time
I felt that the right amount of time had passed between this film and the previous. Neither skipping ten years into the future when most of the characters are dead, nor trying to pretend all this was planned during the last film, it fell into place well, and what all the characters were doing now made sense.
The slapstick in first third was hilarious. I thought "I can't believe they're doing that" with the big ball but it all made sense, and was an extended but not too long treat. And where Jack jumps the cliff I was actually broken down laughing to the point where I started coughing, and there was some spontaneous applause from the cinema.
The metaphysics (eg. who Davey Jones was, the deals he made, the powers he had, etc) all seemed right, both inevitable, balanced and consistent. Embarassingly as in the last film, I was slightly confused when the first revelations were made, but I think it all hung together. And well explained things from the first film (eg. if/how the Black Pearl was supernatural) that were technically left dangling, but not so much they had been unsatisfying.
I'm always very impressed when a book manages some reasonably innovative metaphysics, rather than, eg. having the same vampires in every film, and quite impressed. It's a fairly rich universe here, though probably only as much plot, characters, and magic were introduced as were explored, so there's not that much room for fanfiction.
The second third, with Davey Jones' ship, was really really creepy. It actually made me shiver, which very few non-horror films manage. The idea (condemned to 100 years service instead of death and judgement) made sense, neither too horrific to be filmable (as is my problem with films about hell like "What dreams may come") nor too funny to be interesting. The dice game was suspensful, the whipping was painful, the other damned sailors seemed a perfect depiction of rotted barnacle damned.
The last third, from when Will escapes, was entertaining, but I had a few problems. It's weird that now everything's in sunshine Jones and his crew are so much less creepy.
Some of the humour was just a bit too blatant: some of the comments by the thin and fat pirates were just jokes, not really things they'd say, and the mill wheel was great chutzpah and humour, but over the top.
The three way swordfight was great, and I'm glad they ended up there, but I thought they could have set it up more. As it is it felt too abrupt that all of a sudden the three men don't even try to collaberate against the devil and then stab each other in the back later -- as they have before -- but just whale it out with swords. Though never even cutting each other.
In fact, Jack's lost some of his mystique. Because he was *so wonderful* in the last film, you're not actually sure where to put him in this. He seems to seesaw a bit between villain and hero, without the loveable rogue evetually redeemed thing from the first film, which makes it harder to love him.
I'm really glad Norrington came back. It would have been so easy to leave him out, or make him evil, or just the same staid commodore, but I thought it added a lot to him to show him failing, and releasing his feelings, and then later making a hard choice to recover what he'd lost. But that said, it seemed abrupt that it happened almost all at the end, when he might have been able to stab them earlier or later.
Did I mention that Lord whatsisname was quite good? It's actually a reasonably ingenious plot. Controlling the Flying Dutchman, and hence all the waves, actually would be about amount to controlling the world then, and he managed to implement it with really very little risk to himself!
Also, I loved the governor. He also was a bit bumbling but nice in the last film, but here you see him equally affable, but definitely showing the decision of character necessary to get his position.
The ending was a bit gratuitous, but I was pleased to see Barbarossa, and do look forward to #3!
We sat through the credits from respect, and the possibility of an extra scene. And a nice young man came and apologised and asked if we knew there was going to be, because his girlfriend said there was, but if anyone stayed because of that, he didn't want to get lynched too if there wasn't. Actually, there was a very brief but worth it scene, though, as I'm normally the absolute worst person I know at seeing obvious humour coming[1][2], I was slgihtly chuffed to realise it was a scene I expected since a third of the way through.
[1] It's quite nice. I get to be amused more. But feel stupid when everyone else knows what's going to happen in HP and I don't. THough I'm sure they're not *always* right.
[2] I did call Mousetrap correctly from about the first interval though :)