Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

I don't know your feelings about the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, but I enjoyed the first film and found the second and third ones to be nigh-unwatchable.  The prospects of this, the fourth film in the series, being good are obviously slim, but I have a soft spot for Johnny Depp and I don't usually hold summer blockbusters to terribly high standards; all I ask for is that this be a fun watch.

For those familiar with the other movies, your knowledge will do you no good in this movie --- it requires absolutely no previous knowledge of these characters.  And that's a good thing.  There are only three returning characters (Jack Sparrow, Barbossa, and Gibbs), as the writers wisely decided to leave Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Bill Nighy and the rest bobbing somewhere else for a change.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that Jack Sparrow --- who worked extremely well as a supporting character, but lost his appeal as he got more and more screen time --- is the main character in this movie.

Two characters, one wardrobe.

Here's the nuts and bolts of the plot.  A man, who by all rights should be dead, is caught in the fishing net of some Spaniards.  He apparently has information as to the whereabouts of the Fountain of Youth.  And the race is on!  I hope you didn't grow attached to that informative sailor, because he never shows up again.  The Spanish immediately set sail and, somehow, the British happen to be preparing an expedition as well.  And, as coincidence would have it, so is Blackbeard (Ian McShane) and his daughter, Angela (Penelope Cruz).  AND Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) has been searching for the Fountain in his free time, too.  Since he has a map to the Fountain (which has apparently done him no good so far), Jack is targeted by the British and the other pirates.  The Spanish apparently either don't know about Jack, or saw At World's End and want nothing to do with him.  Since this is a pirate movie, Jack ends up with the pirate team, although his allegiances are nothing if not fluid.  There are a few things that have to be collected to reach the Fountain (it's over two hours long, you know), like a mermaid's tear and some cups, but that's the gist of the plot.

While the plot is somewhat less convoluted this time out, the acting hasn't noticeably improved since Part Three.  Johnny Depp still has all his fey mannerisms, but the character of Jack Sparrow loses his novelty in the spotlight.  The dialogue isn't great, so Depp doesn't have a whole lot to make his character seem fresh, likable or particularly funny.  Penelope Cruz is about as good as you might expect her to be in an English-speaking role; she's very pretty, but her acting is wooden.  There is a romantic subplot between her character and Depp's, but it never actually implies much passion and, therefore, is not very convincing. 

Sparrow and Blackbeard trading beard-braiding tips.

I thought Ian McShane did a pretty decent job as the evil Blackbeard, but his dialogue was also lacking punch.  Sure, McShane seemed evil, but that's not a stretch for him --- he could do that while riding a unicorn that craps rainbows and candy.  And, yes, I get that this series has always had a bit of the supernatural in it, but I didn't really need Blackbeard to be scary because he has super-pirate-ship powers.  That's just kind of lame and completely (although thankfully and hilariously) unexplained.  Geoffrey Rush returns as Captain Barbossa, for reasons I am not entirely clear on. 

"I feel pretty and witty and wise...!"

He does have a peg leg (filled with booze!) in this movie, which is a first (I think) for this series.  As good as Rush was in the first film, he is nowhere near as sinister this time around.  I like the idea of a pirate being accepted by the British Navy (it makes historical sense, too), but that wasn't enough to justify his inclusion in a fourth movie in the series.  Stephen Graham (Snatch, Gangs of New York) takes up the semi-moronic pirate role that was vacated by...well, many cast members from the last movie.  I liked him just fine, but he bounced between being idiotic and surprisingly swashbuckling at the drop of a (pirate) hat.  Kevin McNally returns as Sparrow's buddy, Gibbs, and was as likable in his small part as he usually is.  This film also introduces a boring (but thankfully shirtless, am I right, ladies?) Bible-thumper (Sam Claflin, in his feature film debut), a possibly not man-eating mermaid (Astrid Berges-Frisbey), a definitely man-eating mermaid (Gemma Ward), and a dashing but underused Oscar Jaenada (from The Losers).  Keith Richards makes a cameo appearance, as does Harry Potter's mean uncle, Richard Griffiths.  The acting's not bad, but the new additions aren't enough to balance out the predictable hijinks of the returning characters.

Director Rob Marshall is more famous for musicals than he is action/adventure movies, but I thought that his music video-esque editing made sense for a good portion of this film.  Of course, since I wasn't a fan of the acting, I can't be a huge fan of Marshall's direction.  Directors need to direct their talent, you know.  The film looked pretty good, though, with a lot of sweeping vistas and gorgeous scenes.  Marshall opted for more subtle use of CGI in this film (no octopus-faced villains here), which I appreciated.  While there is an awful lot of swashbuckling going on in this film, I wasn't too impressed by it.  Marshall didn't do a great job putting those fight scenes on camera in an exciting way.  He did do a good job with Jack Sparrow's predictably elaborate and goofy escape attempts, though.  These scenes were sometimes eye-roll-worthy, but I think they still looked pretty good.

I definitely appreciated some of the choices made in this movie, even if they didn't lead to cinematic greatness.  I like that the plot was taken from the book On Stranger Tides, instead of completely manufactured; I hated the plot of the last two films and thought that there were some good ideas in this story, even if they weren't executed very well.  I thought the mermaids were an interesting concept that was almost done well; they were all sexy and deadly, but I hated that every pirate and sailor knew about them and none dismissed mermaids as fiction.  I liked that the relationship between the captured mermaid and the Bible guy was kept as a very supporting plot; I didn't care about them at all, so having their story progress quickly was a blessing.  And how about the use of voodoo zombies?  That was a pretty cool idea.

Sadly, those quasi-compliments can't save this movie.  Jack Sparrow is getting tiresome, despite the best efforts of Disney's writers --- what makes him work in the first film is how dangerous and evil the audience thinks he can be, and the humor comes from him undercutting that malice.  By now, Sparrow is seen as a pretty nice guy and is just a clever/silly Keith Richards impersonator here.  The movie felt long, largely because the fist half was pretty boring.  The second half picked up quite a bit by shifting its focus frequently between the many subplots, but the first half just dragged as everything was set up.  I hated hated hated the use of the Spanish in this movie; they play a very important part (theoretically) and are barely used.  I don't understand how Penelope Cruz's character could be a passionate pirate-lover, a wannabe nun, and a swashbuckling sailor, and yet have none of that manifest itself onscreen.  And why on the hell is Juan Ponce de Leon's ship stuck in the side of a mountain?  And wasn't he looking for the Fountain of Youth in Florida?  Where exactly are the mountains of Florida?  Those last two issues could have been nipped in the bud with any explanation whatsoever, but this movie doesn't like to bother with details like that.

I don't mind that this movie is trying to be a brain-dead romp, but I do mind that I wasn't entertained by it.  It came close on many occasions, but ultimately fell short.  Still, shockingly, it is clearly the second-best Pirates of the Caribbean.

The Long Good Friday

I do a lot of reading of lists and things like that to find interesting movies to watch.  I'm not always in the mood for a great movie (or even a good one), but it's nice to have a little insight into titles that I might otherwise ignore.  That's what brought me to the British Film Institute's 100 "Favourite" Brit flicks of the 20th century.  Many of the films I was familiar with, but The Long Good Friday was the first title (coming in at an impressive #21) that I had never even heard of.  So, with Easter right around the corner, I thought this an appropriate time for a viewing.

Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) is that oh-so-dangerous kind of gangster --- the type that is trying to finally go legit, and therefore has the most to lose.  He has an iron fist on London's organized crime and he has a finger in every dirty little pie (except drugs) in England's greatest city.  Harold has managed to keep the peace between the various criminal groups that he oversees for over a decade, and now (which is in 1979) he is on the cusp of two truly important moves.  He has visiting New York mobsters coming in to possibly give him financing that will allow him to buy up enough (decrepit) London dockyard land and influence enough votes to have London host the 1988 Olympics and build their Olympic town on his land.  The American mobsters get their dirty cash laundered, Harold has a legitimate source of income from the land deals, the city gets a boost of revenue, and all sorts of politicians and policemen get their palms greased.  Best of all, nobody gets killed because it's all mostly legal.  That's better than win-win, it's win-win-win-win-win.  There's just one problem.  On the Good Friday that the American mobsters come to visit, Harold's men start to die in spectacular ways.  His mother's driver is killed by a car bomb, his casino has a bomb in it, two of his best men are found dead; as the day goes on, the bodies and explosions keep piling up.  Who would dare, after a decade of peace, take on the proverbial King Kong of London's criminal underground?  Who could even think of it?  Harold has long since killed his rivals.  Whoever it is, Harold has no problem going to his most savage lengths to find the guilty party.  But what does he do when it is clear that savagery isn't enough?

It's hard to act like a tough thug when you're hanging by a meat hook.

While you might not know the names of the actors in this film, they are all pretty recognizable British actors.  Paul Freeman (Belloq from Raiders of the Lost Ark) has a small, but pivotal, role in the beginning of the movie.  P.H. Moriarty and Alan Ford (the villains from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, respectively) play some of Harold's thugs; Moriarty was pretty impressive as the knife-loving Razors.  Dexter Fletcher (another Lock, Stock alum) makes an early appearance as an ugly child.  Paul Barber (The Full Monty) gets his hands nailed to a floor to make him tell the truth.  Kevin McNally (Johnny's Depp's drunken buddy in all the Pirates movies) has a bit scene in a bar.  Most of these actors had pretty small roles in the film, but most of them have at least one memorable scene.  Heck, Pierce Brosnan, in his first film role, had a major supporting role as a very hairy-chested assassin. 

James Bond: the bathhouse years.

The film belongs to the lead actors, though.  Bob Hoskins is terrific as the street-level thug trying to be a gentleman, especially as that gentlemanly facade is slowly stripped away and we get to see just how brutal he is.  You don't see a whole lot of physically evocative performances from British films in general, but it was all but unheard of in the late-70s/early-80s; the best British films of the time tended to be epic and theatrically acted.  Seeing Hoskins gnashing his teeth together and seething with violence while wearing a fancy suit was a treat.  This is a performance that pre-dates --- and, in some ways, overshadows --- James Gandolfini's Sopranos role by over two decades.  But what sets this movie apart from other gangster movies, at least in the character department, comes from Helen Mirren's portrayal of Harold's girlfriend.  She could have played the typical gangster moll, but (at her insistence, I've heard) her character is smart, sophisticated, and is definitely the brains behind Harold's brawn.  Can you tell me the last time you saw a gangster movie where the lead female role was equal in power to the male lead?  I can't think of any, but you're welcome to try.  This is the youngest I've ever seen Mirren (she was in her mid-thirties at the time), so I was a little surprised to see her as, well...young and pretty.  While her part was definitely a supporting role, I thought her calm and collected smarts stole the scenes she was in.

I'm not too familiar with John Mackenzie's body of work as a director, but he obviously did a pretty good job with the actors here.  I love that the beginning of the film lays out some problems, but doesn't explain them until much later; this might be confusing at first, but I thought that showing what happened, but not hearing the dialogue in most of the scenes or knowing the context of the actions was an interesting (and ultimately rewarding) choice.  I wish I could say the same for some of Mackenzie's other choices.  Many scenes go on too long, adding little or nothing to the overall story and the score, while modern at the time, sounds positively archaic now.  I liked how he handled the actors and assembled the story, but I have to admit that the movie drags at times.

What sets this movie apart from your typical gangster movie is the problem it poses.  The police aren't getting in Harold's way, because he pays them not to.  Politicians aren't making a stink about it, because Harold pays them not to.  Harold's enemies aren't causing all these problems, because they're all dead.  As the enemy is slowly revealed, things start to make sense, especially once the motives for the attacks become apparent.  What I really liked about this movie was how it found an enemy that could take on mobsters and plausibly win.  The script was handled intelligently and it definitely spoke to some of the reality of 1970s Britain.

I will probably watch this again, and I might appreciate it a little more the next time around.  Even if I don't it's still pretty darn good.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

I assume that, when Disney head Michael Eisner says his prayers before bedtime every night, he ends with "...and God bless Johnny Depp."  This movie should have been a huge, $150 million flop, but Depp's bizarre performance fueled it to ridiculous box office numbers and two sequels (so far).  It's based on an amusement park ride, a genre of movie that is barely existent for a reason; nobody wants to see Tilt-a-Whirl: The Movie.  Beyond all probability and expectations, though, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was an unqualified success, grossing over $650 million worldwide.  But was it any good?

Despite the title, the Black Pearl had no curse.  The subtitle should have been PotC: Montezuma's Revenge, but I can see some negative connotations with that.  They could have at least used PotC: Screw You, Aztec Gold!  Whatever.  The main story of this film is unusual, because it doesn't necessarily require these particular lead characters.  I'll explain.  The main plot is about the crew of the pirate ship, the Black Pearl.  These men discovered a famous cache of Aztec gold, but learned too late that the gold was cursed; after they spent it, they lived as supernatural creatures, unable to feel pain or joy, only hunger.  The only way to remove the curse is to gather all their spent gold from around the globe and return it to its resting place, with the blood of everyone that took the gold.  Unfortunately, pirates aren't very trustworthy, so one of the crew mailed his son a gold piece (just before the others killed him), so the crew could never know peace.  And that's just back story!  The movie hasn't even started yet! 

The son, Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) grows up to be a blacksmith in Port Royal, Jamaica.  As a child, he thought he lost the cursed gold piece, but it was actually found by his dream woman, Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley).  I don't know why she held on to the piece for over a decade, but she did.  On the day she rediscovers the gold piece, she manages to fall in the ocean.  Clumsy wench.  Upon hitting the water, a pulse is sent out across the seas; apparently, the gold calls to the cursed pirates.  Unaware of this, Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), who has no ship or crew, rescues Elizabeth from drowning.  As a show of thanks on behalf of the Port Royal navy, Sparrow is arrested for piracy by Commodore Norrington (Jack Davenport).  Well, he is eventually arrested by Norrington.  In the meantime, Sparrow meets Turner, and they have a swordfight where the audience realizes that Will Turner is a boring person: "...and I practice [swordplay]...three hours a day...so if I meet a pirate...I can kill him!"  Will, that is a huge investment of time for a relatively unlikely goal.  Of course, he did meet a pirate, so I guess it was all worthwhile.  While Sparrow is in jail, Port Royal gets attacked by marauding pirates, who are after Elizabeth's gold piece.  Thinking that they mean to use her as a ransom object (her dad is the Governor of Port Royal), Elizabeth lies and tells the pirates that her last name is Turner.  Well, they're looking for a Turner with the gold piece to remove the curse, so they take her with them.  From there, Will frees Sparrow to rescue Elizabeth, they recruit their own crew of crazy pirates, and try to avoid being caught by Commodore Norrington or killed by the crew of the Black Pearl.

You see?  With that back story in place, it doesn't really matter who else is in the movie, as long as the Black Pearl's men find the last gold piece.  Yes, Will Turner's blood is needed to remove the curse, but Elizabeth and Jack Sparrow could have easily been somewhere else and the pirates would have still gone after Turner and the gold.  In my mind, that is the A plot, with Jack Sparrow's attempts to regain ownership of the Pearl as the B plot and Will and Elizabeth's love story as the C plot.  You wouldn't think it, but that's just how it is.

That unconventional plot structure combines with a novel genre mashing to make this a pretty unique film.  Pirate films have been pretty terrible for the last, oh, 70 years or so.  I can only think of one good movie in my lifetime with a pirate in it (The Princess Bride), and there was little to no piracy in that film.  To salvage that, the screenwriters (and there were a lot, so I'm not sure who came up with this idea) decided to make this a supernatural pirate movie.  Sure, you throw in a few skeletal undead pirates, and the whole movie starts to come together.  Honestly, the traditional "pirate" scenes, particularly the sword fighting scenes, are among the film's more ridiculous moments and are not particularly exciting.  Still, the use of humor and the good character work bolster the supernatural pirate premise enough to overcome those shortcomings.

Performance-wise, most of the cast is playing it pretty simple.  Orlando Bloom actually has to play it simple, since he has trouble expressing more than mild confusion in any movie.  Still, he plays the straightforward swashbuckling role well enough and works even better as a straight man for Johnny Depp.  Keira Knightley gets to practice her sassmouth in this film, making her character surprisingly feminist, given the story's setting.  Geoffrey Rush is great as the evil Captain Barbossa; it's not a complex character, but Rush clearly has a blast in the role and that makes him fun to watch.  Also worth noting is Kevin McNally as Jack Sparrow's friend, Gibbs.  He's not fantastic, but he blends comedy and piracy well.  The rest of the cast is less impressive, but nobody is terrible.  Jonathan Pryce and Jack Davenport are fine as the primary supporting non-pirates.  Lee Arenberg started out as a pretty menacing figure in his first scene, but he and Mackenzie Crook quickly became the comedy relief for the pirate scenes.  Zoe Saldana has a bit role, but she's still moderately annoying as the film's only female boat captain.

With those actors and characters, this would still be a pleasant movie, but it is Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow that makes all the difference.  A bizarre combination of sleazy femininity, outright drunkenness, and Keith Richards mannerisms, Jack Sparrow was entirely created by Depp.  How he got that past Disney's people, I don't know.  While Depp is the lead actor in the film, he functions as a supporting character.   He doesn't really spark the action, but reacts to situations.  That keeps the character fresh and appealing throughout; too much Jack Sparrow can be overwhelming, as the sequels can attest to.  When I first saw this movie, I laughed at almost everything Depp did on screen.  He wasn't cracking jokes, but his character is very busy; he is constantly constantly changing his expression, touching things, and swaying in the wind. While I wouldn't say this is Depp's best performance, I believe it is certainly his most memorable character and, as such, his Oscar nomination for this role was well deserved.

Depp delivers almost all the best lines in the movie, which helps his character's appeal.  It really doesn't get any better or simpler than Sparrow's reaction to when Will accuses him of cheating in their sword fight: "Uh, pirate."  While there are a lot of clever lines ("Clearly, you've never been to Singapore" is another), there are some pretty terrible script moments, too.  I understand that Elizabeth is all gung-ho and anti-damsel-in-distress, but the scene where Keira Knightley is having trouble fitting into a corset because it's too tight...?  That's some mighty fine acting, because I'm pretty sure she is sixty pounds soaking wet.  And Keira gets saddled with a lot of bad dialogue, too.  Her worst line of dialogue is also her last: "[Will Turner]'s not a blacksmith...he's a pirate!"  And everyone shakes their head and smiles, because they realize that Elizabeth is a very stupid girl.

The Curse of the Black Pearl turned out to be a pretty fun movie.  Yes, it's too long and director Gore Verbinski spends too much time on the supporting cast, but it manages to make pirate movies entertaining again.  Johnny Depp deserves most of the credit for that, but Geoffrey Rush does a great job as Depp's counterpart.  The story would be stronger if there was more linking these characters than serendipity, but it doesn't require much suspension of disbelief (until the sequels).  No, it's certainly not a flawless film, but what more do you want from a movie based on an amusement park ride?