Bella Dea wrote:Yuppers and I loved it, just like the first two!
It started out a bit blah but really picked up.
I too think that there will be a 4th, only because Jack has to get the Black Pearl back!
I don't think that the story is losing steam at all. I think they have nearly endless possibilities and storylines...considering they can even bring characters back from the dead!
As for Johnny selling out, I don't think that at all. He's never been one to take a role because it was the popular thing to do; he takes roles because they allow him to express his artistic ability, whether it be drama or comedy.
I can't see anyone else in that role. It was like it was written for him. And he is fantastic as the slightly off Jack Sparrow.
The movie probably wouldn't have worked without Johnny in that role. From my perspective, it's full of holes. Port Royal was destroyed in an earthquake in 1696, so there was no way it was going to be the center of Royal Navy operations in the Caribbean in the early 18th century. (By the way, the film was shot on the island of St. Vincent, because they were able to find a coast on the island with no telephone or electric lines. By a fortuitous accident--i don't believe for a moment that the producer or the people responsible for locations knew this--it was an almost exact reproduction of the harbor at Port Royal. There is no bay, and there is a tall headland to the west, with a headland which does not enclose the harbor to the east; i suspect they just got lucky with that one.)
Jack Sparrow's pistol became useless the first time it was dropped in the water.
Black Pearl in the harbor could not possibly have elevated it's guns high enough to have fired on the fortress, and the guns of the fortress could have blown it to splinters, including any boats they launched, within an hour or less. The hand grenades the one pirate character was using would have spread shrapnel all over the place, but would not have blown out a window (except for breaking the glass with fragments). Elizabeth Swann managed to get wet several times in her shift, but never displayed a nipple--she must have a strange anatomy. (I know, i know, it's a family film.) There is and never was a pirates' code. Henry Morgan was based in Port Royal, and he was known in his lifetime as "the King of the Pirates"--but there was no famous pirate whose last name was Bartholomew. Bartholomew "Black Bart" Roberts did write a code for those he signed on to be pirates in his employ, but he did that after he had left the Caribbean, and when he was operating on the west African coast.
It is true that Sparrow and Turner could have (just barely) sailed
Interceptor by themselves, but they couldn't have done so for days on end without sleep--and they certainly could never have caught up to
Black Pearl. To get from Port Royal to Tortuga would mean sailing against the prevailing winds, through the Windward Passage (so called because the winds blow almost constantly from east to west) between Cuba and Hispaniola, to reach the island of Tortuga, which is north of the north coast of Hispaniola, in what is now Haiti. Having accomplished the nearly impossible task of sailing a brig from Jamaica to Tortuga "just by their 'twosies'," they then sign on a crew, and catch up to
Black Pearl just minutes after that ship arrives at Isla de Muerta, despite the fact that Sparrow had declared
Black Pearl to be faster than
Interceptor, "well nigh uncatchable." (I won't go into the poor sailing qualities of brigs--which wallow like pigs but have the advantage of being extremely durable, although pathetically slow.)
When
Black Pearl is chasing
Interceptor, she catches up (despite being herself, remember, "well nigh uncatchable," and therefore one assumes already faster than
Interceptor) by running out sweeps. Running out sweeps while running before the wind not only would not speed her up, it would slow her down. Jack tells Norrington that
Dauntless can catch
Black Pearl (despite an apparent head start of at least one day) because she was "listing near the scuppers." That would mean that she was so low in the water that her main deck would be nearly awash. In the final fight scene, Will Turner is greatly aided by an inexplicable incompetence on the part of the three pirates he has taken on, while Jack and Barbossa duel with swords and witticisms.
None of that matters though, for several very good reasons. Jack Sparrow is a tour-de-force of a character, and the evidence is that he is one of the most popular characters in motion picture history. Although i don't think he gets the credit he deserves, Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) also turns in a bravura performance. "First, your return to shore was not part of our negotiations nor our agreement so I must do nothing. And secondly, you must be a pirate for the pirate's code to apply and you're not. And thirdly, the code is more what you'd call 'guidelines' than actual rules. Welcome aboard the Black Pearl, Miss Turner." There have been few movies villains who have done so well as Barbossa/Geoffrey Rush. The two "gay" pirates, Pintel and Ragetti (Lee Arenberg and Mackenzie Crook) provide first class comic relief. Mr. Gibbs (Kevin McNally) and in the second movie, Calypso, the voodoo "priestess" (Naomie Harris), both turn in first class supporting performances. Although i thought that Keira Knightley did a good enough job in the role she was given, i found Elizabeth Swann to be one of the weakest and least convincing characters. That is not the fault of the actress, however.
All of the weapons and clothing and artifacts of the 18th century were very accurate, and the sword-fighting scenes were extremely well done and convincing. (The Sweetiepie Girl said she knew she'd love the movie when she saw that first duel between Sparrow and Turner in the blacksmith's shop.)
Black Pearl was not very convincing to me, but i can be hypercritical about those sorts of things--for a Hollywood pirate movie, it was well done. (
Suprise in
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World actually is a frigate, and far more convincing.) They did well enough with
Dauntless, and for
Interceptor, they used
Lady Washington, a replica brig which was sailed down from the Oregon coast for the movie. With no one wearing a wrist watch, no electric power lines in the background, no planes flying overhead, and no other breaks in continuity which i could see, i think they did a first class job in the details of the filming. They went to an awful lot of trouble to get the 18th century feeling for the film, and in that, i think they committed no blunders.
The movie works because it is a classic Hollywood pirate movie, and is far better than any other pirate movie that Hollywood ever did, in my never humble opinion, and that includes
Captain Blood with Errol Flynn and Olivia DeHavilland, which was probably the best pirate movie until this series was made.
I loved the movie, wasn't bothered by any of the nonsense they foist onto the viewer, have seen the first two, and look forward to the third.
