Letters to the Editor
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Smiled all the way through...
Let me add my vote to the lovers of this movie. No, the story wasn't as strong as it could be, and it did feel a tad long... but the adventure and spectacle and kraken attacks and the sheer visual ingenuity of the crew of the Flying Dutchman put a smile on my face for almost the entire 2 1/2 hours. Everything you want in a summer movie.
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Going nowhere
I'm with SZ on this one. The movie was quite fun, but it didn't engage me at all.
The first movie was perfect cotton candy with a good structure, a clear sense of direction, great characters, and superb dialogue. This one had no structure, felt like it wasn't going anywhere, did nothing new with its characters, and seemed from the outset to be trying far too hard to cash in on the catchphrases of the first movie (predictable references to "the rum being gone" went down like a lead balloon with our audience). There didn't seem to be enough real surprises either - most of the developments felt as though they were signposted about five minutes beforehand.
I think part of the problem was the lack of character development in this movie as opposed to the first one. Sure it's a fun action flick, not a character study, but any good action movie has characters who hold your interest and who develop as people by pushing themselves to new limits (think of anything from Die Hard to X-Men). One of the great aspects of Curse of the Black Pearl was the way in which Will and Elizabeth, and even Norrington and his comedy sidekicks, actually found depths within themselves that they never knew before. You need that sort of development to give the action and the comedy something to hang upon. This movie was just too superficial for its own good. At least Elizabeth did develop slightly towards the end, but a great opportunity for Will's character to grow was entirely wasted. As for characters like Norrington and Beckett, they could have been interesting, but were sadly one-dimensional.
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er, who's lazy now?
"The story is pockmarked by laziness: The filmmakers reintroduce (among other characters) the charming, scruffy jailer dog from the first movie -- only in this one, they leave him to be eaten by cannibals. Couldn't they have bothered to include just one witty shot of him scampering away? They either forgot, or they just didn't care."
hey there ms zacharek. if you had watched the movie right to the very, very end - to the end of the closing credits - you would have found that they didn't forget the dog. they had a small closing scene about him and the cannibals, er, just as they did for the monkey at the end of the first film? so...isn't it rule one in the critic's book to, like, watch the whole movie? so, really, you should have stayed and, no, i'm afraid i can't tell you how it ended. that would be spoiling it.
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Black and White
I am a fan of SZ and of the POTC films (I look forward to numero tres). But why is SZ so obsessed with white guys? Why is "white man" automatically deemed a term of derision within Salon?
From the review: "Jack discovers he has nothing to fear from living white guys like Beckett, but needs to tread carefully around dead white guys like Davy Jones (Bill Nighy)"
The "whiteness" of Beckett and Davy Jones are about the last thing you'd notice about either of them, especially Jones who is decidedly more squid-colored than white.
And, forgive my un-PCness, for I know I'm automatically supposed to love the voodoo priestess character because she's an ethnic actor in an big budget action film, but I couldn't understand a single word of her dialogue. She looked great in the part, but I'll have to switch on the subtitles during her scenes on the DVD.
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The Damn Dog
You're an idiot. The shot you pine for ("The filmmakers reintroduce (among other characters) the charming, scruffy jailer dog from the first movie -- only in this one, they leave him to be eaten by cannibals. Couldn't they have bothered to include just one witty shot of him scampering away? They either forgot, or they just didn't care.") is exactly the type of script-by-committee crap that ruins movies. The kind of shot that comes about only because some exec thinks not seeing the dog ultimately escape the cannibals would be too scary for kids, or one who thinks, as you do, in a script that's been read by hundreds, the filmmaker must have simply "forgotten" to save the dog.
Do you think your clever for suggesting that "witty" shot? The only reason you feel like the bit is "missing" from the film is because the same cliched shot has been used a hundred times before in other crappy movies: camera cranes out, we pan to the open sea under a starry sky, and we spot lil' Fido swimming by, keys still in his mouth; he's alright after all! Hey! Maybe he could even wink at the camera as he doggy paddles along!
It honestly blows my mind that a film critic would bemoan the lack of a hackneyed, overused device in a film. You're a disgrace.
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Doggoneit
He shall be eaten still.