Half-Assed Pirates 2 Review

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I'm not really surprised that Pirates of the Carribbean : Dead Man's Chest is breaking records this weekend - went to see it on a semi-lark yesterday and the lines and crowds were outta control. Been awhile since I've had to stand in a line after getting to the theater 45 minutes early.

As for the film, it was precisely what I expected, and I left it feeling the same way I did the first one - that is, they're great Summer Movies, loud and fun and completely pointless. A more enjoyable overall experience than Superman Returns was, but mostly because it was without the burden of nagging ideas (or, a single thought, really) in its colorful, riotous head.

Johnny Depp does more of his still entertaining Capt. Jack schtick, essentially carrying the entire film on his stumbling shoulders.

I found myself - a first! - liking Keira Knightley this go-round. She had more to do and, in a twist at the end, she got very interesting indeed.

Not so fortunate is Orlando Bloom, who continues to not register at all as an onscreen presence... now that he's gotten a little older and his once-flawless skin is griming up a bit, I'm beginning to wonder if there's any reason at all to cast him in anything. Will Turner is, I suppose, the bland audience-surrogate hero we need in this sort of overblown action saga, but... I hardly remember a single moment of Orli's performance. Not a note that stood out. Where Johnny Depp commands the screen with all the booms and CG-squishiness going on around him, I find myself looking at everything but Bloom when he's onscreen. I'm bein g a little extra-harsh on the guy here - I loved Legolas as much as the next geek, am one of the few people who enjoyed him in Elizabethtown and Kingdom of Heaven, but really, honestly, seriously, he is such a cipher in these Pirates films that, well, it sort of offends me. You just got reunited with your father, boy! Express something more than befuddled petulance!

Now, as for that CG-squishiness, DMC has got the goods - this one's darker, grosser, nastier and... dare I say, cooler. The squid-beard we've all seen in the trailers on Davy Jones is hypnotically beautiful; the slick sea-faring anomolies born upon all of Jones' crew - hammerhead, shell and starfish, crustaceans galore - are gorgeously realized. Oh, and the Kraken? Pretty kick-ass itself - not to mention the squishy (keep coming back to that word - it's a squishy movie) sound of its tentacles flying through the air; the sound design on the film, when not trying to blow out your eardrums (though helpfully drowning out the sound of your neighbors cooing noises) is really well-done. Anyway, you're seeing the money up there on the screen, and it's pretty incredible.

I suppose I liked this one better than the first because of the nastiness of the special effects - any time this much loving craftsmanship is spent on realizing oozing sores and splitting pustules with legs, I can only be awed. But again I left the theater a little empty inside, the equivalent of a cinematic-Twinkie buzzing in my veins, slowly dissolving with each step into the sunny summer day.