Yar, Thar be Pirates!

Guess what movie Tria and I saw, go on guess. That’s right, Superman Returns. Wait, I mean Pirates of the Caribbean 2. I realized that normally we don’t bother to talk about the “real” world. After all, you’re here for the comic right? RIGHT?!

However, this is a special case. We derive a lot of our inspiration from the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, Walter’s pirate speak in my case. This is, in fact, so special that it warrants both a special comic and an actual rant. Therefore, I’m going to do something unheard of before: I’m going to write a movie review.

Overall, I thought it was a rather good movie. Not a stupendously amazing movie. Certainly not as good as the first movie. But overall, quite a good movie. Definitely worth the ten dollar ticket fee.

I’ll admit that the movie had its slow points, basically any scene that didn’t have Keira Knightley, Orlando Bloom, or Johnny Depp in it. It’s these scenes that stop the movie from being ASTONISHINGLY AWESOME and instead merely very good.

To be fair the slower scenes were integral to the plot, but I still think there could have been a way to bring up those plot points in a more interesting fashion than talking heads. Or it could have been the scenes containing the three above mentioned actors were so action packed they overshadowed everything else. Regardless, it was a problem. I realize that it’s hard to keep something interesting while explaining things, but it’s still possible. Hell, they should try being funny while advancing a plot every week.

Fortunately, the explanatory scenes were kept to a minimum. The rest of the scenes were, as expected, sufficiently entertaining. Basically all the standard pirate swashbuckling fare (how do you buckle a swash anyway?) we’ve come to know, love and expect. And they apparently gave a part to Cthulhu, which also gets points in my book.

Now, one odd thing I did notice, is that any professional review of the movie gave it a middling to poor rating. The reasons vary from article to article, but I think I know the lurking variable in each of them. The movie is the second movie in a trilogy. It has middle child syndrome. Historically, no one seems to like the middle movie in a trilogy. Take a look, both Empire Strikes Back and The Two Towers were considered the worst movies of their trilogies. It doesn’t really make any sense.

Personally I think it’s because people are just way too insistent and HAVE to have closure at the end. Normally, closure is good, it brings things to an end, and lets everyone know that the story is over. Which is the point in all the above cases. The story wasn’t over, there was more to tell. In the case of Pirates there IS more to tell. They just thought that after TWO AND A HALF HOURS audiences might be getting kind of tired and want a break.

Honestly, I think I prefer it this way. It allows to tell an epic story; something that isn’t limited to two and a half hours. I think we’re too tied down “rules” of hollywood for stories. It’s like every movie has to have a love story. It pisses me off. Anyway, I think I’ve had my say.

By the way, they’re arguing over Jack Sparrow’s hat in the comic.