Pirates of the Caribbean Marathon Review

It happened. Pirates of the Caribbean is now a quadrilogy, just like Indiana Jones (Yes, that last movie happened) and Rambo (Yes! That last movie happened). So what better way to prepare for the fourth movie than to watch the last three? And it wouldn’t make sense to watch them and not review them. Okay, it would, but they’re such fun movies I may as well write about them anyway.

The Curse of the Black Pearl

Monday was a Holiday in Canada. It's Victoria Day, and it always takes place a week before Memorial Day in the States. And even though it's not September 19th, I decided to use it to watch the Pirates of the Caribbean movies (to be honest, I would've gone to the theatres to see the fourth in the evening, but we decided to put that off for a few days). Anyway, if my R's are extra long, it's because I'm feeling a bit too pirate-y.

The first movie opens up with a ship sailing through mist. We're introduced to a young Elizabeth Swann, daughter of a governor in the British-held lands of Central America. They come across the wreckage of a ship, as well as a young survivor, Will Turner. She takes a medallion he has around his neck while he's unconscious (thief). A time cut tells us that this was a dream of the now-older Elizabeth, and how she met Will Turner. After she awakes, she's given a present from her father: a beautiful but constricting corset. She puts it on while downstairs in the estate, Will presents Elizabeth's father with a sword. Governor Swann takes it to give to Captain Norrington on occasion of his promotion to Commodore (got that straight?) Will and Elizabeth greet each other. It's clear Will's in love with Elizabeth, but he won't admit it to himself or anyone else (as so often happens in romantic comedies, but no so much in action movies).

About this time, Captain Jack Sparrow arrives aboard a sinking boat, stepping onto the pier just before it sinks under the waves (say what you want, but Captain Jack Sparrow’s got a great sense of timing). He's arrived to pillage and plunder to his heart's content (after acquiring a boat, of course), but is stopped from commandeering a vessel by two enthusiastic but slightly incompetent members of the British Navy (At this point, I can't remember if it's His or Her majesties service).

After the ceremony, Norrington takes Elizabeth to the ramparts over the town and proposes. The shock (as well as the length of the service in the scorching sun, and that damned British fashion requiring corsets) causes her to faint and fall into the rocky waters below. She's rescued (both from the waters and her bodice) by Jack, who's thanked but arrested by Norrington. Jack takes Elizabeth hostage to get his stuff back, and makes a break for it, but encounters Will in the blacksmith's shop (Will's apprenticed himself to the blacksmith, virtually taking over the company while receiving none of the credit. He takes it well, though). They clash swords in a wonderfully choreographed fight before Jack's knocked out by the blacksmith, who's just awoken from his drunken stupor. Jack's arrested, with all credit going to the blacksmith (again).

That night, the place is attacked by the Black Pearl. Elizabeth is hunted down and captured. She demands the right of Parley, and is taken to Captain Barbossa aboard the Pearl. Lying, she says her name is Elizabeth Turner, thinking that a simple maid in the governor's office will provide the pirates with less leverage. But they kidnap her anyway, after agreeing to leave and never return to her home.

The next morning, Will demands that a rescue be mounted at once. He's rebuffed by the navy, who have their own plans. Desperate, he turns to the one man who can help - Batman. No wait, sorry, Captain Jack Sparrow. Will frees Jack from prison in return for help in getting Elizabeth back.

Through some nifty trickery, they acquire the HMS Interceptor, the fastest ship not named The Black Pearl. They sail for Tortuga, to hire a crew daft or foolhardy enough to sail with them. With crew in tow, they chase the Pearl to La Isle de la Muerte (The Isle of Death, I think). During the travels, most of the backstory is laid out.

Jack used to captain the Pearl, with Barbossa as his second mate. After learning the location of the treasure they were after, Barbossa mutinied and left Jack stranded on an island with no hope of rescue (and how did that turn out, hmmm?) Then they took the treasure, which was composed of 882 pieces of Aztec gold (cursed, of course). Will's father had second thoughts about the mutiny and was fired overboard via cannon. However, the curse manifested itself - while the crew couldn't die, they also couldn't feel anything, smell anything, taste anything ... you get the idea. Determined to undo the curse, they set about to recover every piece of gold and return it to the place it had been plundered from, whilst also spilling the blood of anyone who had stolen it.

The Pearl lands, and the crew take Elizabeth to the chest with all the gold. They cut her hand (spilling the blood), press it to the medallion, and return it to the chest. Nothing happens (Duh, Elizabeth lied. She’s not Turner’s daughter after all). But before they can sort out what happened, Will silently rescues her and spirits her away to the Interceptor. Jack is left behind, and the crew’s to stick to the code (the pirate code, that is: "Anyone who falls behind is left behind." United States Marines they aren't).

Jack is captured by the cursed pirates and taken aboard the Pearl, which sets sail after the Interceptor. A naval scuffle ensues, in which the Interceptor is blown to pieces (even in the 18th century, they knew how to do explosions right). Will shows up on the Pearl, and agrees to be captured in exchange for Elizabeth going free and the Interceptor crew not being harmed. They're taken to the brig, while Jack and Elizabeth are offloaded on the very same island that Jack was marooned on before.

Without Jack's knowledge, Elizabeth burns all the rum ("Noooooooooo!") creating a signal fire that draws the Dauntless (Norrington's ship). They're all set to go home, but Elizabeth persuades Norrington to rescue Will in return for her hand in marriage. Isla de la Muerta, ho!

Jack is sent in to persuade the Pearl crew to come out (Jack has different ideas). Elizabeth sneaks aboard the abandoned Pearl and frees the Interceptor’s crew, hoping to enlist them in a rescue attempt (the crew have different ideas). After much pirating, some backstabbing, and an undead Jack, the curse is lifted in time for Jack to kill Barbossa. The Pearl crew surrenders, and all is well. Well, the Interceptor crew have made off with the Pearl, leaving Jack captain o' nothin' and facing the noose.

Luckily, most of the denouement is taken up with Will rescuing Jack, and eventually being given a head start by Norrington. Also, Elizabeth and Will declare their love for each other, and Norrington takes it surprisingly well. Finally, Jack dives into those good ol’ rocky waters below the ramparts and swims out the Black Pearl, which has returned, and takes command.

I like this movie. I like the soundtrack, I like the action, I like the ladies (see if you can spot Zoe Saldana), I like the acting, I like the explosions, I definitely like the humour, I even like the stinger (the monkey stealing a piece of gold, right at the end). It's definitely a theatre movie, and I actually got to see in theatres, way back when (eight years ago).

Dead Man's Chest

The second movie starts on a rainy day. Bleakly falling on many fancy things, we learn that it's supposed to be Will and Elizabeth's wedding day. Instead, they get arrested (Worst! Present! Ever!) by Lord Becket of the East India Trading Company (part of a conglomerate made up of other fictional, evil megacorporations, along with the company in Robocop and Supersize Me. Oh, wait ...) He locks them away.

About this time, we're re-introduced to Jack Sparrow, paddling a coffin to The Black Pearl. His mission complete, he's welcomed aboard. His mission, apparently, was to acquire a very valuable scrap of cloth with a drawing of a key. Alrighty then.

That night, he's visited by a member of the Flying Dutchman, captained by Davey Jones (of Davey Jones' Locker, which is apparently the place you go when you die at sea). 13 years ago, Jack asked Jones to raise the Pearl in exchange for a hundred years of service aboard the Dutchman. Jack, being one who avoids any kind of labour if he can, flees to the closest land he can.

Cutting back to jail, Will is freed on the condition that he find Jack Sparrow - specifically, Jack's compass (the one that didn't work in the previous movie). Hoping this will free Elizabeth as well and speed along his marriage, Will agrees, and starts hunting at Tortuga (as good a place as any these days). He manages to track Jack down to a remote island, where he comes across the beached and abandoned Black Pearl. He's captured and caged with the rest of the crew by a group of cheerful cannibals, who intend to return Jack to Godhood by eating him. No thanks. After much action, silliness, and chaos, the crew manage to escape. This distracts the natives long enough for Jack to escape as well, and they all make their way down to the Pearl and cast off, much to the natives’ chagrin. They even manage to pick up some ex-villains from the previous movie, now reformed (but not quite).

Instead of getting as far away as possible, they head upriver to a shack in the middle of nowhere, the home of Tia Dalma, who I take it is supposed to be some sort of voodoo witch/priest (Magic people! Voodoo People). She's actually quite nice, if mysterious, and explains what the key is that Jack has a drawing of. Many years ago, Davey Jones fell in love with a woman, only to have her break his heart. Enraged, he cut out his own heart and placed it in a chest, which he stowed on an island. This wasn't that great an idea, seeing as how he can only step on land once every ten years or so. Anyway, the key opens the chest. Unfortunately, while Jack and crew have knowledge of the key and the chest, they actually have neither. After Tia tells them that Jones always has the key, they set off to find the Dutchman.

About this time, Elizabeth's father uses his influence to break her out of jail and send her off to London. Only influence doesn't go as far as he thought, and he's arrested. Elizabeth sneaks off and steals the pardons from Beckett before setting off after Will. Disguised as a man, she sets out for Tortuga (for a wretched hive of scum and villainy, it seems like a pretty happening place).

The Pearl comes across what appears to be the Dutchman. Will searches it, but the real Flying Dutchman shows up and takes him captive. On the advice of Jack, Will says he's there to settle Jack Sparrow's debt. It does not go well. However, Jones confronts Jack, who tries to weasel out of his deal. For 100 souls, Jack can go free. Jones gives him three days.

Where to get 99 more souls? Tortuga, of course. The drunker, the better. Again, Jack has to hire a crew stupid of foolhardy enough to sail with him. Elizabeth finds him there, as well as a destitute Norrington. James Norrington has fallen on hard times, having resigned his commission and becoming an 18th century vagrant after failing to capture Jack on the merry chases they had (Benny Hill music optional). Jack gives Elizabeth his compass because it won't work for him anymore. Supposedly, it points at whatever you want most. Jack convinces Elizabeth what she wants most is the chest containing the Heart of Jones, using it to free Will (and thence to get married). Using her heading, they set off.

Meanwhile, aboard the Dutchman (Spinning Batman Logo here), Will meets his father. Being undead, he wasn't granted the sweet release after being fired off the Black Pearl all those years ago, so he agreed to serve aboard the Dutchman for 100 years (this is the standard deal offered to a great many people over the course of the movie. It's already penned into the contract and everything). With some skilful bluffing at Liar's Dice, Will gets Jones to reveal the location of the Key. Waiting until nightfall, he steals it with the help of his father and escapes the Dutchman, but not before promising his father he'll find a way to free him from Jones' clutches.

Unfortunately, the ship Will's taken aboard is promptly attacked by the Kraken (Jones' giant pet, and just as evil as its owner), and so Will has to stow away back aboard the Dutchman. Luckily, his theft has convinced Jones that his heart is no longer safe, so he sails to the island where it's buried. Too bad about the 10 years between steps on land, though, as he has to send his minions to retrieve the chest. And as countless villains have stated before him "Good help is so hard to find" and "If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself." We'll see how it works out for Davey Jones (I’m going to guess not well).

Will washes up on the island just as James, Elizabeth, and Jack unearth the chest. After greeting Elizabeth as a long lost lover should (that's enough, okay, get back to the plot, down boy), he goes to open it. Jack stops him with the point of his sword, though. Will intends to stab the heart to free his father, but Jack needs the heart to call off the Kraken. James pulls his sword as well, because he needs the heart to trade to Beckett (it's what Beckett's been after this whole movie) in return for his old life, and maybe a promotion if it's not too much trouble. A three way sword fight ensues.

Allow me to go off on a tangent (hell, I'm going off on one whether you like it or not). Three way fights are very hard to pull off. Most of the time, fights are one on one, so you only have to choreograph one fight. Sometimes fights will be one on two (think Obi-wan and Qui-gon versus Darth Maul at the end of the Phantom Menace - but just think of that, not the atrocity that was the rest of that movie), and so only two fights will have to be choreographed (A against B, and B against C). With a one on one on one, three fights have to be choreographed, and it's suddenly three times as much work by just adding one person. And whoever choreographed these fights did it BEAUTIFULLY. It's actually a fairly lengthly battle, involving a lot of different props, and it's just fantastic. Back to the movie.

Elizabeth is understandably upset that the first thing boys do when they don't agree is to pull out there swords and start whacking each other, but her attempts to distract them are interrupted when two member of their crew make off with the chest (ostensibly, to remove such a terrible temptation from their lives). She hurries after them.

It's about this time that Davey Jones' crew arrives, and chase after the chest. Everyone meets up back at the shore, after the three-way battle for the key seems to have been resolved, and all the good guys are more-or-less back on the same side. James takes the chest and runs back onto the island to draw Jones' crew off, while the rest can escape. After a short chase, James flings the chest at the crew and runs away.

The others flee back to the Pearl, but are soon set upon by the Kraken. Using all their gunpowder, they manage to seriously injure it, but they know it's coming back, and coming back very angry. They resolve to abandon ship. With everyone left in the longboat, Elizabeth kisses Jack, distracting him while she handcuffs him to the mast. She knows that the Kraken's after him, not the Pearl. She gets onto the longboat and says Jack stayed behind to give them a better chance to get away.

Jack frees himself, but not before the Kraken reappears. Facing imminent death, he adjusts his hat and leaps down the monsters gullet, sword in hand. James makes it back to Beckett, and hands him the heart of Davey Jones (he had it, looked like he didn't have it, and secretly had it. Wheels within wheels, man). The rest of the crew from the Pearl (maybe six of them) return to Tia's hut to lament Jack. However, she tells them of a way to bring him back ...

I like this movie too. The music is even better than the first. It introduces more themes, and just seems more vast and epic. The action is pretty good (They still know their explosions), and the three-way swordfight is just stupendous. I cannot stop complimenting it. Whoever put that to film deserves an award of some sort. It's also a theatre movie, and yes, I saw it in theatres.

At World's End

The third movie opens with a bunch of people hanged, while their rights are being revoked by Beckett. If he keeps killing all of his subjects, he won't have anyone left to rule.

Anyway, we soon switch to Singapore, where Barbossa (he’s back!) and Elizabeth try to hire a crew from the pirate lord Sao Feng. Sao Feng's a little wary, since Will broke in and tried to steal his special charts depicting the edge of the world (wait, is this a Monty Python Sketch?) but got caught. The whole meeting is ambushed by the Royal Navy, acting under orders from the EITC (East India Trading Company). Most people manage to get away, and Will even secures a ship, a crew and the charts necessary to sail off to infinity (and beyond!)

They set off to someplace very cold, and then very empty (there's not even any waves, just stars, real and reflected). They're well and truly lost, which is good, because it's only then that you can find things that can't be found. I think the Matrix had too much rum.

Yes indeed, current theories about the shape of the world are wrong, and the ship goes sailing off the edge of the world into nothingness.

Meanwhile, Jack finds himself aboard the Pearl, crewed by himselves. Frustrated at the ineptitude of his hallucinations, he leaps overboard onto a flat surface that I can only imagine was filmed at the Utah Salt Flats. Spying a rock, he throws it as far as he can, only for it to turn into a crab. Soon, thousands of crabs have arrived, and begin to move his ship. Stunned, he gapes as it goes by, finally regaining his senses and running after it.

The rest of the crew awakens on a beach with the wreckage of their ship. Yes, this is in fact Davey Jones Locker, and they have no way out. Until the Pearl shows up, surfing on a wave of crabs, and splashes magnificently into the water. Warily, Jack lets everyone on board, only for Barbossa to assume command. Arguments ensue, but they pale somewhat to the fact that they're still in the land of the (mostly) dead.

Luckily, and with the help of cryptic clues on the charts, Jack figures out how to get back (Flip the ship upside down at sunset ... it's so easy. And they say surviving a nuclear blast in a fridge is ridiculous. Okay, that was pretty out there. I probably shouldn't get into arguments about how ludicrous movies are).

They set sail for Shipwreck Cove (Gee, I wonder what happens to ships there?) so they can convene all the pirate lords together and figure out what to do about the EITC. Much backstabbing, treachery, and betrayals ensue. Elizabeth finds herself promoted to captain by Sao Feng after he's mortally wounded. They're captured, but freed by a newly promoted (it worked!) James Norrington. Proving no good deed goes unpunished, he's promptly killed while Elizabeth screams his name (she gets the scream-someone's-name-when-they-die job, and she does it well).

Once everyone gets to Shipwreck Cove (even the EITC’s right outside, due to multiple traitors in the pirates’ midst), they have to decide what course of action to take. One, go out and fight, in which case they’ll probably be slaughtered by the East India Trading Company. Two, hunker down and wait out the siege, in which case they’ll probably slaughter each other due to the rampant betrayals and the fact that they’re, well, pirates. Or three, free Calypso. Calypso is the Goddess of the sea, bound in human form by the first Brethren court (this meeting of the pirates is the fourth). If they free her, it’ll probably mean they doom of the EITC fleet, but the pirates will also be killed, seeing as how Calypso’s none too pleased with anyone.

To make a proper choice, the pirates have to elect a king. Democracy not being any pirate’s strong suit, things go awry until Jack casts his lot with Elizabeth, and now she’s king (Gender roles be damned). She elects to fight, so the next morning, all the pirates sail out to meet the EITC. The pirate fleet is fairly sizable, but nothing compared to the armada the EITC has. Hastily rethinking their plans, the pirates decide to free Calypso and take their chances. But who’s Calypso? Why, it’s Tia Dalma of course. The ritual is performed to free her from her human prison, and Will helpfully informs her that while pirates may have imprisoned her, it was Davey Jones who told them how. Yes, she broke Davey Jones’ heart in the backstory to the previous movie, and many betrayals between the two took place. Angered, she grows to a fifty foot woman, before transforming into a tidal wave of crabs (yes, the same crabs that hauled the Pearl across Davey Jones’ locker. If you look closely, you can see some foreshadowing in that scene).

The crabs wash over the deck of the Pearl and fall into the sea. Calypso, out of the goodness of her heart, creates a maelstrom to suck down both sides. The Dutchman charges across the giant whirlpool, and the Pearl goes to meet it. The other ships hang back and spectate.

Down in the maelstrom, the weather’s terrible, with rain lashing down on everything and lightning forking down everywhere. The ships are sailing at 45° angles and firing cannons at each other. Will and Elizabeth, having worked out whatever problems they had in their relationship and realizing that they may not have that much time, get Barbossa to marry them (him being the acting captain of the Pearl and everything. Jack’s being held prisoner aboard the Dutchman). They kiss in a wildly cinematic helicopter shot as an epic love theme plays in the background. When I get married, I want that to happen (minus the swordfighting and death, mind you).

Now married, they swing over to the Dutchman, possibly to help Jack - I don’t know. Will fends off the crew while Elizabeth fights Jones. But she’s disarmed, and Will rushes to her rescue, only to get stabbed through the heart by Jones (and a great disturbance was felt in the Force, as if millions of Fangirls cried out in horror, and were silenced). Will’s father, having regained his senses (being a crewman aboard the Dutchman has a detrimental effect on sanity), tackles Jones before he can do anymore damage. While all this is going on (actually, before most of it), Jack escapes from the brig and finds the chest with Davey Jones’ heart in it. After Will has been stabbed, Jack (in a fit of selflessness) helps Will stab the heart of Davey Jones. See, the Dutchman must always have a captain. Whoever kills Jones will live forever, but must ferry the souls of the dead to the afterlife. Every 10 years, that person will be able to step onto land for one day.

So Jones dies, and Will’s father cuts out Will’s heart as the Dutchman sinks beneath the waves, and Jack escapes to the Pearl with a distraught Elizabeth. The maelstrom dissipates and the weather clears up. The Endeavour (Beckett’s ship) prepares to enter into battle against the Pearl (now battered, bruised, and missing quite a few crew members).

All looks lost, but what’s that bubbling up beneath the surface? It’s the Dutchman, now captained by Will Turner, who’s sporting a black bandana and a huge scar on his chest. He pulls up the Dutchman alongside the Pearl, and together they give the Endeavour the business. And by that, I mean they blow that ship to itty bitty pieces. Beckett, stunned at the betrayal, can’t give any orders. Finally, his lieutenant orders the ship be abandoned. Beckett stays with the ship while his business plan explodes around him. Finally, he’s consumed by fire (but seriously, he’d be sliced and diced far beforehand by all those flying wood splinters).

The EITC turns tail and runs. The other pirates, despite not having fired a single shot, celebrate wildly. They’re free from the tyranny of ... law and order, and the all that other stuff we generally want in a civil society. The crew of the Pearl gives Elizabeth a longboat with which to travel ashore to meet Will, who can only spend one day there before he has to get back to his day job of ferrying souls. One day on land, ten years at sea. It’s a steep price, but apparently worth it if that one day is spent with Kiera Knightly. Er, Elizabeth Swann (sorry). Before Will sets out again, he gives the chest, now containing his heart, to Elizabeth. It’s always been hers, you see.

Meanwhile, in a place that’s not the deserted island where Elizabeth decided to make her home, Barbossa has once again stolen the Pearl out from under Captain Jack Sparrow. But Jack, being somewhat smarter than last time, secretly stole the charts Barbossa was planning on using to find the Fountain of Youth. Jack sets out to find it himself.

I like this movie too (if you haven’t noticed a pattern, I’ve liked all three). They still have plenty of explosions (now in even slower motion), and while there’s nothing as precise as the three-way fight from the previous movie, the climax is still epic. Many, many battles, lots of cannons, a whole bunch of chaos (and far more swing around on ropes than is generally seen outside of a Tarzan movie). Some of the betrayals leading up to the climax were a little headscratching, but I just rolled with it.

And the music. Holy Cow, the music! Grand, epic, awesome. Themes from the previous movies were expanded on, more themes were added. Just an amazing score, from beginning to end. Really added to the movie, and sounds great on its own as well. All told, it’s a theatre movie (and hey, I saw this one in theatres too).

Oh yes, the stinger. It takes places 10 years later. Elizabeth is watching the sunset, keeping an eye out for a green flash right before the sun goes down. It signifies a soul returning to the land of the living. She watches with her son.

On Stranger Tides

We saw this movie on the fancy screen at the new theatre, in 3D, with all the bells and whistles (complete with reserved seating, which is one of the best theatre inventions since the online ticket purchase). Evan pitched a shutout in the preview game, so we battened down the hatches and prepared for disappointment.

On Stranger Tides is directed by Rob Marshall. "Great," I said to myself. "He did ‘This is Spinal Tap’ and ‘The Princess Bride’." Then I remembered that that was Rob Reiner, and he also did North. Rob Marshall has directed Chicago and Nine (not the dystopian CGI puppet one, the musical one). So if we ever need a Pirates of the Caribbean musical, we know where to turn. And don't get me wrong, a musical Pirates of the Caribbean on Broadway would be excellent. Witty dialogue and swordplay harkening back to Errol Flynn could really make that work on stage. In theatres, though, is another matter ...

The movie opens off the coast of Spain (not near the Caribbean) as two fisherman haul out a body from one of their nets. Suddenly, the body awakes! After the title sequence, they take the body to the King of Spain (or maybe just a very important person, perhaps a Duke or Earl). Everyone speaks Spanish, by which I mean English with a Spanish accent (hurray for multiculturalism). The King puts an expedition together based on the word of the body. He's seen the Fountain of Youth, or something similar, and the King wants to find it.

Meanwhile, in London (also not near the Caribbean), Joshamee Gibbs (Jack's right hand man throughout most of the movies) is on trial. It's supposed to be Jack's trial, but they brought the wrong man. Whoops. Anyhow, Jack impersonates the judge to commute Gibbs' sentence, then leaves through the back door and joins Gibbs in the carriage. His plans go awry when they're taken to a palace, not a pier (bribed drivers should stay bribed, dammit). Gibbs is taken away, while Jack is brought inside and manacled to a very ostentatious chair. He's confronted by a very fat, very important British person, who cannot stand the thought of the Spanish outdoing the British at anything, and commands Jack to find the Fountain of Youth before those dastardly Spaniards. If snooty was personified, it would be that British Lord. The ship Jack is ordered to lead will be captained by none other than Barbossa, who's accepted a commission from the Royal Navy after losing a foot (and the Pearl) at sea.

Jack decides to pass on the offer, and instead of taking what's behind door number two (death) escapes rather handily, starting a chase throughout the palace that eventually spills out onto the streets of London. Jack leads the redcoats (Are we allowed to call them that yet?) on a merry chase, before sneaking off into a pub. There, he meets another pirate who's been impersonating him to hire a crew.

Things don't go well for Jack after the initial swordfight, though, and he's press ganged into service aboard The Queen Anne's Revenge, captained by none other than Blackbeard. Blackbeard has a sword (and possibly other powers) that allow him to control his ship through telekinesis, or something like that, begging the question of why he needs a crew at all.

Blackbeard, as well as Barbossa (with the help of Gibbs, who's saved his skin by memorizing, then burning some very useful charts), and don't forget the Spanish (no one expects the ... never mind) are all racing to the Fountain of Youth (hey look - it's even foreshadowed in the previous movie!) through trials and tribulations, perils and … perilousness.

Anywho, I won't spoil the rest of the movie, although I'm not sure how much of a disservice that would really be. See, this movie isn't quite as good as the previous instalments. It tries, it really does. But it's like a sponge rung dry.

The action is decent, but nothing spectacular. The best fight scene is near the beginning, and copies a bit from the swordfight between Jack and Will at the beginning of Curse of the Black Pearl. The most inventive scene is an escape involving a rope and several palm trees.

The music is a step back from At World's End. They've added some themes that aren't great, and taken out the love theme that I enjoyed so much. Still, it's pretty serviceable.

There's an odd subplot involving a missionary and a mermaid. Yes, there are mermaids in the movie, but they're mostly evil. They lure men over the sides of ships, then drown and eat them (sometimes the other way around). Also, when they're rebuffed too much, they get vampire teeth, attack like giant flying fish, and their war cries are an awful lot like the screaming eels.

Anyway, I got to thinking that maybe the chemistry was causing the lower level of fun. The Jack role stays with Jack. Kiera Knightley's role is given to Penelope Cruz, and while she isn't as good, she's not bad. The Villain role - passed from Barbossa to Davey Jones - is given to Blackbeard, and he fulfills it admirably, but that may be due to being played by Ian McShane. They need to have him as the villain in every movie.

Anyway, the Orlando Bloom role goes to ... no one. I think that's where they went off the rails. Will Turner is such a good straight man to the absolute crazy that goes on around him. This movie tries to fill it with the missionary, but his character mainnly revolves around the mermaid. Gibbs can't take the role, since he's Jack's sidekick and rarely more. Other characters are minor or funny, so they don't qualify. Who knew that a straight man was so useful to comedy? Well, Abbott and Costello, but you get the idea.

I think there were a few too many Wallbangers for Evan to take. I tended to roll with them more, but he was prejudiced by a number of very funny reviews he had read beforehand (While I stick to normal critics' reviews and rest assured I'll disagree with 99% of them 99% of the time).

So all in all, this is a Blu-Ray movie. The 3D adds something, but not enough to go see it in theatres. It's a bit of fun, but it’s mostly like Bilbo at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings - "Like butter scraped over too much bread." Maybe the franchise has run out, or maybe they simply need more butter and less bread.

Priest

After a day off playing World of Warcraft and ... more World of Warcraft, Evan and I went to see Priest. Priest is made my Screen Gems, a subsidiary of Sony. So some of the previews were well known (Transformers) and some not so much (remakes of Straw Dogs and Fright Night), and some on our list for later (Colombiana, starring Zoe Saldana, of whom I'm pretty sure I can watch in anything).

The movie itself starts with Priest (Paul Bettany) leading a small group of fighters into an underground warren, supposedly searching for something. One ambush later, some of them die, some of them escape, and one of them is left behind (Karl Urban). Then it gets into an anime-esque introduction sequence to the story. Humans and Vampires are two different races continually at war. Vampires are fast and strong. Humans have technology and daylight. They almost lose despite those advantages, before training a sect of fighters known as priests, who are specially trained vampire slayers ... sorry, hunters. They do there job incredibly well, and the war ends with the vampires kept in reservations (basically, giant reservoirs from which they can't escape). Being genre-savvy, the government (aka the church) disbands the priests before they can revolt. But the priests don't really have any civilian skill, so most of them do mindless labour.

We go back to live action as Priest goes about his day. He stops at an automated confession booth, revealing his sin of doubtful dreams, and is given his penitence and forgiveness. Also, we get the church's tagline "To go against the Church is to go against God."

Out in the boonies, Priest's brother's family is attacked. The husband is seriously injured, the wife killed, and the daughter (Lucy) kidnapped. The local sheriff (who's also in love with Lucy), informs Priest and invites him on a vampire hunt. After some waffling and a confrontation with the head of the church (who's going beyond willful ignorance into what I can only call Active ignorance), Priest sets out to recover his niece.

He's tracked by four other priests (who've been ordered by the church to bring him back, dead or alive), one of whom is played by Maggie Q (the Q stands for Quigley, so I can understand why she goes by an initial). It's implied that she (imaginatively named Priestess) and Priest have had a romantic relationship, despite the vows of chastity each priest takes.

Anyhow, she meets up with Priest and Hicks (the sheriff), while the other priests are killed by the head of this pack of vampires. Priestess teams up with Priest to take the bad guy down. They follow him to a train that's carrying a bunch of vampires to the city, intent on restarting the war. Action ensues.

The main problem I had with this movie is unoriginality. If you've seen Equilibrium, you've probably seen most of the setting. Blade Runner fills in the rests. Seriously: A totalitarian government trains a select group of religiously-named elite soldiers to do it's dirty work. Comes complete with symbol (Equilibrium had the four T's, which look a lot like the crosses that abound in Priest). Priest definitely has more overt religion, but even that's copied from the Bible, or Catholic tradition (Psalm 23, Hail Marys). Makes me wonder where this movie is set. The wild frontier indicates a midwest in the late 19th century, while the city indicates the future. The mix of both would indicate an alternative universe, but then where did all the Christian imagery come from? Did Jesus die to save the sins of alternate dimensions? (You bet he did!)

I liked what they did with vampires. Feral, sightless, not at all like were use too. More like beastly werewolves instead of people. I kept on thinking I had seen them before, though. It wasn't until I thought about it a while that they reminded me of the Geth in the Mass Effect games. Agile, leaping, sticking to walls. Pain in the butt to shoot. Good, but not original.

I didn't like the motorbikes. They're the main method of transportation outside the city. I get putting a mini jet-engine on one, just not on the front. It looks more like an air-intake, but that would blow the rider off. Instead, it just looks silly. I'm willing to give the film makers the benefit of the doubt and pretend they had to take the design from the comic book on which Priest was based.

The music was suitably gothic, but I'm not sure I'd like it outside of the movie. Some soundtracks are really fantastic at amplifying the movie, but don't sound so great outside of it (Lord of the Rings, Star Wars). Some music sounds great inside and outside the movie (Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean). I think this is one will be the former.

The dialogue is a mixed bag. Some of it's trying to be very serious, or meaningful, or symbolic, and kind of falls flat. Some of it's ripped off from westerns, and I liked that ("I know the look on a man's face when he enjoys taking a life. That look comes easy to you." "It comes. Easy's got nothin' to do with it.")

Finally, the final action scene is competent, but not awesome. They had the chance for an epic martial arts fest, and went the close-ups and brawl route. But I guess that's what happens when two white guys fist-fight (and yes, I totally went there. Jet Li or Tony Jaa wouldn't have let such action stand without something suitably mind-blowing).

Now that I've slammed the movie enough, I really should pick it back up. While it does steal a lot, it steals from good movies. The worst that can be said about this movie is that it's competent. It's well rounded; solid. While there's nothing truly spectacular (except for size of the off-switch on gravity), it's all around good. So I'd say it's a Blu-Ray movie. Probably not the best Blu-Ray movie, but not the worst.

Thor

It’s been about a year since Evan and I started mindlessly going to movies … sorry, going to see mindless movies. Completely oblivious to this momentous occasion, Evan and I went to the gun show ... er, Thor. Man, is he ripped. And yes, there was the obligatory shirtless scene where the women stare appreciatively and while the subject (object?) remains oblivious.

We got there a little late (but not too late, as Evan has vastly superior traffic skillz than I), but the movie started even later. We went to the Ultra AVX theatre (ultra pricey, too), There were four previews (all on our list), and I threw down a shutout, so we were a little worried (last time I did that, Jonah Hex showed up).

The movie itself starts off with three people in a van: Natalie Portman as a physicist (more believable in that role than Denise Richards, at least), her senior professor (who's also the professor in Good Will Hunting who initially tries to help Will Hunting, and then gets into an argument with Robin Williams after he got an award that Williams was passed over for), and a political science assistant. She was the only applicant. She's also there plot-wise because she doesn't understand science, so whenever they have to explain anything to the audience, they can explain it to her. Like a wormhole, described as an Einstein-boson bridge (Mind you, if you put Einstein in front of anything, it makes it more sciency. If they had called the A-bomb the "Einstein-Oppenheimer Device," everyone would've been all "Ooh, science!" instead of "Maybe we shouldn't play with devastating power.")

Anyway, they're in this van, trying to observe predictable atmospheric phenomena (the northern lights), but it doesn't materialize. Oh wait, it does, it's just late, and much more massive than they expect. It's basically a stationary tornado filled with lightning, and raising a hell of a dust storm. At Portman's insistence, the van goes racing into the dust storm, only to hit a man. As they get out to check on him, and the tornado dies, Portman asks "Where did he come from?"

So we flash back to where he came from. Anthony Hopkins narrates himself as Odin, many years previously, battling against the frost giants. Eventually, he and his armies push them back to their home of Jötunheimr, and confiscate their power - a block of ice they call the casket. It looks like the head of Thor's hammer (Mjölnir), only made of blue ice. It's about that size, too. Pretty small, but it packs a wallop.

Anyhow, it turns out that Odin's telling this story to his sons, Thor and Loki. A number of years pass, and soon Thor has his ascension day. I guess Odin's going to retire from being king or something. Unfortunately, the day gets spoiled when frost giants break into Asgard's weapons vault and try to steal the casket. They get killed by the guardian (A giant, metal robot that reminds me of Klaatu's guardian. Also, it can shoot fire beams from its face).

Thor demands they exterminate the frost giants once and for all. Odin tells him to shut it - they have peace now, and that's worth a lot. Thor gets his friends together and they decide to invade Jötunheimr anyhow, just the six of them. Ostensibly they go just to get answers, but the frost giant king insults Thor, and it's on. So they battle a dozen frost giants, but more come, and then even more, and suddenly a giant beast appears that's similar to a cave troll from the first Lord of the Rings, only much larger. So Thor finally has enough and cracks the ground, swallowing up most of the frost giant army while his friends flee and he flies away. Which of course, leads to a "You mean to tell me ..." moment.

The story of how "You mean to tell me" came to be was related to me by Evan a few weeks ago. He and his friend were watching an old Jackie Chan movie that also had a kid that could do martial arts. The kid went to school where a bunch of bullies were beating up on a fat kid. Day after day, this went on. Eventually, the kung fu kid snaps, and beats the tar out of the bullies. Now, the fat kid is supposed to be emoting "that was awesome!" but instead, Evan and his friend both thought the kid was thinking "You mean to tell me that this WHOLE TIME, you've known Kung Fu, and you didn't use it? I got CLOBBERED, dude! Not cool!" So now, whenever someone holds back on their power until fairly late in the battle, it's a "You mean to tell me" moment. I used to call this "Oh, there's my gun!" Because often in movies, when a a good guy and a bad guy fight hand to hand, the good guy wins. But then the bad guy pulls out a gun (or a knife), as if forgetting where he had stored it upon his person. Of course, he doesn't get to use it. The good guy beats him to a pulp, proving you shouldn't bring a gun to a fistfight, but still. You had a gun the whole time, Dumbass, why didn't you use it? The director is trying to get us to think the bad guy is thinking "I'll see if I can beat him man-to-man. If I can't, then I'll fight dirty." But instead, the audience is thinking "You mean to tell me that this WHOLE TIME, you've had a gun, but were too stupid to use it?" Thus, a "you mean to tell me" moment. You can see examples of this at the beginning of Unleashed (where Jet Li beats a group of men to unconsciousness before one of them remembers they have a gun in the desk drawer) and near the end of Bad Boys (where the bad guy runs away, gets shot, gets arrested, and then pulls out the gun from his ankle holster). In this movie, Thor's friends are surely thinking "You mean to tell me, that this WHOLE TIME, you could've beaten the whole army, and you didn't? Dude, not cool!"

Back to the movie ... Odin is displeased at the rashness, arrogance and foolishness of Thor. He strips his son of his power, confiscates Mjölnir, and tosses him through the wormhole to Earth. Unbeknownst to Thor, his father also tosses his hammer in after him, stating that only the person who is worthy of being Thor will be able to lift it.

So that's where the movie meets back up with its start. They take Thor to the hospital after getting tazed ("How dare you attack the mighty ... zzz"). They definitely play the fish-out-of-water thing for laughs. Hey look, it's a Viking in New Mexico! Eventually Thor escapes and meets back up with Portman, who takes him to the crash site of Mjölnir. The government (Actually, S.H.I.E.L.D. from other Marvel movies) have taken it over, but Thor manages to fight past all the guards and get his hammer. Only he can't lift it. Distraught, he sees his father's rune on the side, basically judging him unworthy. He's taken into custody of SHIELD where he's questioned. Loki (his brother, and also a master of magic) shows up and tells him Odin's dead, and his mother wants him to stay banished. Most of which is untrue, but with Thor out of the way, Loki can be king. And it's good to be king.

Thor's broken out of holding by a wild take from the senior professor. SHIELD knows it's a lie, but wants to see what they're up to. So they get on with following him around surreptitiously.

Anywho, after an evening of drinking with the senior professor, and a night discussing wormholes and Bifröst (the rainbow bridge) with Portman on the roof of their motel, suddenly: Character development! Thor is instantaneously selfless, nice, smiling, and helping to serve breakfast the next morning. His friends show up, having defied Loki's orders and come to Earth. Loki finds out, though, and sends the guardian to kill his now mortal brother. Robot of Doom wreaks havoc on the town where they're staying. The other Asgardians distract it while Thor, Portman, and the others help evacuate the town. Thor then goes to face down the robot, and knowing Loki is listening, apologizes and says he's willing to sacrifice his life to save the others. Loki says "Sure thing" and the robot swats Thor. He tells Portman at least she's safe now, and then dies. Oh whoops, spoiler alert. Luckily, Mjölnir, having discerned its master is finally a good boy, flies out of the rock it's been stuck in, and returns to its owner, resurrecting him and returning to him the power that had been stripped. He and his friends return to Asgard to show Loki what's what.

Anyway, there's a climax. In some previous reviews, I've referred to the climax as mostly emotional (Source Code, From Paris with Love) instead of action. This climax is mostly special effects. There's not a whole lot of action, but boy does everything look good.

This movie starts off badly. The 3D is kind jarring at the beginning, like a jigsaw puzzle that's been forced together. The action is confusing and not very clear, and the music and sound effect border on painfully loud. There wasn't a lot of subtlety at first. However, when Thor and his friends first go to Jötunheimr, they do so by way of Bifröst, which is just awesome. Best. Transportation. Ever.

Then the banishment comes, and the Earth scenes are quite good. There's not a lot of action (the big set pieces on Earth are the Robot fight and Thor breaking into Mjölnir’s crash site. It was not hammer time, evidently), but the dialogue is hilarious, and all the actors can pull off their part. Thor is arrogant but getting his just desserts. Portman is flustered but nice. The senior professor and assistant pull of their roles almost as well. Renee Russo shows up as Frigga (Odin's wife) and does alright. Anthony Hopkins is surprisingly disappointing as Odin. Maybe it was his lines, or trying to be all Shakespearean (Kenneth Brannagh directs), but it just doesn't work well. Thor's band of merry men (and a woman) are competent. Loki's pretty good, although his plan is pretty convoluted and underwhelming. Pay no attention to the plot, audience. Here's some special effects to distract you.

I didn't like the music too much, but I doubt that'll be a problem for most people. It was more triumphant that I was expecting. Lots of major chords where I prefer minor chords to bring out the tension and drama. Major chords just make it seem like everything is going well, and victory is easily attainable.

But I really liked Natalie Portman. Man, can she act. She does flustered well, and they gave her a lot of terrific lines. I guess she has great comedic timing. Plus, she tests the theory you don't have to show cleavage to be sexy. And pulls it off. And as a side note, she has a degree from Harvard. I'd be smitten if I wasn't so intimidated. Anywho ...

I also liked the Mythology, but mainly because it's very familiar. A lot of the lore from World of Warcraft is based on the Norse pantheon. The creators of Azeroth left behind watchers that match up closely with those of Asgard, plus some of the names of places are similar. They even have their very own Frost Giants you can beat up for epic loot. At one point, Loken (based on Loki) was the deadliest boss in one of the expansions. Many players died at his feet (myself included many times).

To sum up: Norse Gods + Natalie Portman + Good Dialogue + Slow Start + Not Much Action + Great Special Effects + Mediocre Music = Blu-Ray Movie. Mind you, it also added up to $66 million at the box office over the weekend, so that's an equation the studio can live with.

Fast Five

And so, another summer starts. We kick off with 8 straight weeks of mindless entertainment, and what better movie to begin with than Fast Five. I saw this with Evan and Shaun, and we got there late (actually, Shaun was on time. Evan and I were late because I have terrible ideas about traffic, and Evan listens to them). We walked into the theatre just as it was starting. The studio logos had just faded, and an ominous voice was sentencing Dom Turetto (Vin Diesel) to jail.

About 30 seconds later, he's broken out by Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) and Dom's sister, Mia (Jordanna Brewster). They do this by making the prison bus lose control, then flip over many, many times. Yet no one is killed, and of course, Dom is the only one unaccounted for.

We soon meet up with Brian and Mia in Rio, taking a job for Vince (who I think is Letty's brother, from one of the previous films). Anyway, the job is to steel fancy cars from a train, so we cut to the train, speeding through the Brazilian outback (they have an outback?) Mia and Brian are on the train, while the other part of the gang drives up beside the train on a flatbed truck/dunebuggy, and cut through the side. The cars are then pull from the train onto the dunebuggy, then driven off into the desert. Mia makes off with the one car the boss actually wants (the boss is a drug dealer), and so the plot is on.

After a harrowing escape from the train when the rest of the gang tries to kill them, Brian and Dom (who finally showed up in Brazil, by the way), meet up with Mia and strip the car. Turns out there's a chip for a GPS navigator in there that lists all the addresses of where the drug dealer stores his money. All $100 million of it. On a side note, the drug dealer, Reyes, is played by Joaquim de Almeida, who's smooth but evil in all of his movies. Desperado? Smooth but evil. Clear and Present Danger? Smooth but evil. I think I've only ever seen him as a good guy when he guested on The West Wing and tried to woo C.J.

Anyway, a heist plot starts and many fun-but-time-wasting intricacies introduce themselves. Also, three DEA agents were killed on the train by the gang and their head, the right-hand man to Reyes, a guy Evan nicknamed Weasel-guy, since he always showed up at the end of shoot-outs to look mean, but not be in any danger. Dom and Brian are blamed for their deaths, so the US government sends down Hobbs (played by The Rock, in all his steroidy glory) to hunt them down and bring them in. Hobbs gets the best line - "Put on your funderwear" - which I need to start using more.

Anyway, driving ensues. Not as much as you'd expect. They even skip over a street racing scene they could have pumped for tension, but the movie was long enough as it was. Still, there's enough driving at the end to make up for it.

There were a few things I was disappointed in. First, there were more emotional scenes than I expected. Most of them didn't work. Dom bonding with a cop who lost her husband in the line two years previously. She's apparently the only one who understands how he feels about Letty (Michelle Rodriguez, whose character was killed last movie). The dialogue is so wooden, it could have burst into flames. Which definitely would have improved the scene, mind you. Some of the emotional stuff actually did work, at least for me. Dom and Brian have a quiet moment drinking beer on a balcony and discussing their fathers, because SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER ... Mia's pregnant (She and Brian are married, or something). END SPOILER.

Another thing they missed was during a footrace through the Favelas. I gather that Favelas are the tiny houses in the slums, with four walls and a corrugated tin roof, and a million crammed together in every South American city, with winding walkways scattered throughout. Anyway, The Rock and his team invade the garage where Dom, Brian, and Mia are at, just as the drug dealers get there as well. A fairly tense footrace ensues, across roofs and through narrow, twisting passageways. But I would've liked to see what a true expert in Parkour could have put together. Unfortunately, neither The Rock, Walker, or Diesel are at all skilled in Parkour, so there was just a lot of running, some punches, and a few jumping off roofs and onto (or through) others. What David Belle or Cyrel Raffaelli could have done with that would've been amazing.

Now, onto what surprised me. I think Paul Walker is growing on me. Maybe it's just that he's spent so much time on movie sets, but he can actually act now. At least, some of the time. I’m as surprised as you. I thought he was a blonde Keanu Reeves when I saw The Fast and The Furious, but now he has depth and everything! Besides that, I enjoyed the one or emotional scenes that worked, and the music. By golly, the Music! Of course, it's by Brian Tyler, who you may recognize as the guy I raved about for doing the score for Battle: Los Angeles. Apparently, he has the skills to pay the bills, since his scores are awesome. Usually, these movies are filled to the brim with generic hip-hop and bland rap, but there was very little of that here. Only three or four songs. Of course, they'll release the soundtrack, and it'll have those four songs, plus a few more rap songs "inspired" by the movie, and only one or two songs from the score, and it'll be terrible, so I won't buy it. Blah. It's what happened to Bad Boys, which had a tremendous score, and a terrible soundtrack. I had to wait 12 years for the score and there was only 3000 cut, and I had to buy it from this fly-by-night website that kept sending me spam since I was silly enough to shell out for one of those products. Makers or Fast Five: Please sell the score on Amazon. I will be forever temporarily grateful! (okay, rant over)

Sometime around the end of the movie, they don't defy the laws of physics, they just turn them off. Gravity? Only when the lines fall flat. Momentum? See ya! Inertia? Get the hell out! Of course, that just makes the last chase scene (and it's fairly long) more exciting and awesome. Totally a theatre movie, if only for the hot women, exciting music, and tremendous action. These cars are so agile, they can drive right around the plot-holes and not miss a beat!