Yeah. I’ll see 3, if only to watch Geoffrey Rush as Barbosa again. He was my favorite in the first movie. And maybe they’ll get back to the East India Company as villains again. Oh, and lots more Norrington.
B/F & I had a bet last Spring about which movie “blockbuster”, “Da Vinci Code” or “Pirates 2”, would pull down better opening weekend numbers. I bet on “Pirates”(turned out I was right by a substantial amount). So can’t help comparing the two “action flicks”, thus I felt & still feel “Pirates” was the much better movie. However, I was also sadly disappointed by my initial viewing of “Pirates”…it was far too disjointed for me, Jack Sparrow actually became a one-trick pony, and the cannibal scene bored me (& dare I sugest most others as well?) nearly to tears.
But when I took my 16-yo son to see “Pirates” (my 2nd viewing, & ONLY the possibility of going to this movie with my son who never wants to go anywhere with me anymore, could have made me want to see it again), I definitely enjoyed it much more. I have to believe it was my son’s reaction to it—he liked it quite a lot–that colored my view, but even the plot seemed more coherent, and I definitely noticed more, and especially liked Norrington’s transformation (never noticed before what a cutie he is!).
I might actually buy it for my son, who found it wonderful. Maybe a person has to see it with a kid to derive any sort of joy from it.
–Beck
I dunno, I saw it with my 15 year old daughter, who watches the first one at least once a month, worships Depp and has a Mrs. Bloom tshirt that she actually wears (and not ironically, no matter how she insists otherwise), and *she * didn’t even like it.
Why is everybody so literal around here lately?
Of course it was CGI, but so what. It was 50 pounds of CGI-generated goo instead of prosthetic goo. It still covered his face so much that Nighy himself couldn’t see the acting he did.
http://movies.about.com/od/piratesofthecaribbean2/a/piratesbn062906.htm
I’m stopping you right there, because that’s all the needs to be said. TESB was a better movie. It also was a totally different movie than Star Wars. RofJ wasn’t, which is why it was (comparatively) panned at the time. It was also intended to be the middle piece of a trilogy all along, while Pirates II was nothing more than a buck-making reaction to the success of the original.
“Meh” for me, but then I was “meh” on the first movie as well. I love the cast, love the effects, love the pirates concept… but it just doesn’t connect. I thought the second movie was just as disjointed, confused, and over-plotted as the first.
Fair enough. 
But ya know what? I like to be entertained too…by entertaining movies, whatever they may be. Hollywood blockbusters, indies, foreign films, obscurities, cheesey horror flicks, whatever. I’m not especially picky and I’m not a snob. But POTC2 was almost as bad as one of my most hated films, Armageddon (it was lacking only that film’s cynical pandering). As for Depp, I think he’s one of our best actors and I applaud his diverse choices in roles, but here he was just coasting - all performance and no soul.
I liked it. My only problem with it was the Back to the Future II syndrome - it’s not quite a movie that works in itself, it needs the first and third to fit itself in - and we haven’t seen the third yet.
My theory is that once all three are out, and a couple of years have passed, it will work better, like I think BTTF II does.
I hope it will, anyway. But even if it doesn’t, there’s a lot to like about it. I am pretty familiar with Bill Nighy’s other performances and think he comes through the CG Davy Jones remarkably accurately. It’s an amazing feat of artistry.
I just wanted to chime in and say that Davy Jones is one of the most impressive CG effects I’ve ever seen. I was blown away when I read that no part of him was real.
As for the movie itself: meh. THey totally fucked with Jack Sparrow and he bears little resemblance to how he acted in the first movie
Well, let me be the one to disagree with everybody : I think PotC2 blew part 1 out of the water.
I didn’t care much for part 1, it was much too slow, the sword fight at the end was about 3 times too long.
Part 2 however starts and doesn’t let up.
I think this is one of the most enjoyable action-adventures I have seen in a very, very long time.
My take is, PotC:CoBP and PotC:DMC fall into two different movie genres.
PotC:CoBP is an action-adventure movie, Disney style. It’s light-hearted, bloodless (until the end), and a fun ride. It’s the sort of movie to watch with a bucket of popcorn and a bottle of rum.
PotC:DMC is more of a drama. People who think it’ll be a light-hearted adventure flick (and I was one of them) would be disappointed by the change. This movie is more serious, more complex, with bad outcomes happening. It’s also a serial, ending with a big fat annoying “TO BE CONTINUED.”
Grr. vBB booch.
Now I REALLY want an “edit post” feature, to correct the colon-D into a colon-space-D.
I liked many elements of PotC 2 – the rolling wheel fight, the cliffside prison escape, the Leviathin attacks, and most of all the trips into the swamps to visit the witch woman, but it was a very disjointed, episodic movie and it was at least half an hour too long.
POTC 2 was 2 1/2 hours of pure buckling of swash. Vapid and disjointed, of course, but who cares in a silly romp.
POTC 1 worked because it was so unexpected. Who woulda thunk that a movie based on a Disney ride would be anything but dreadful, much less good, but once Johnny Depp minced on screen the energy and joy of the movie just pulled you along.
POTC 2 worked because it was so expected. You had the same cast of characters and knew their quirks. These old friends just went off and did their things for a few more hours. It’s like a Star Wars sequel – we don’t want something radically different, just more of Spock and McCoy arguing, Scotty struggling with his transformers and Kirk chewing the scenery on a quest to outwit some new and entirely the same type of alien. I’m sure that POTC 3 will be more of the same as its predecessors, and that’ll be just fine with me.
I’m kind of surprised that on one’s has mentioned the obvious point about the movie that kept hitting me in the face when I saw it. The movies thin plot is threaded along a series of spectacular stunt gags and images that are destined to become Disney rides or adventures. The movie was a purpose built chassis to carry these “imagineering” concepts to fruition.
Some of us might want , ya know, Han and Chewie and lightsabres?
I liked Dead Man’s Chest, with one or two little niggles -first, everything and everyone on the Flying Dutchman was just sooo OTT gross, it was a leeettle bit silly and hard to take quite as seriously. Secondly, I didn’t care for the swampwitch actress. But that did little to lessen my enjoyment, and I look forward to the conclusion.
I liked it. Found it enjoyable, if somewhat too overtly aimed at a sequel.
I liked PotC 2 almost as much as the first. I thought the special effects and make-up for Davy Jones and his crew were incredibly well done. Bill Nighy’s charisma really showed through, IMO.
The rolling water wheel action sequence was my favorite part of the film. It was well-choreographed, amusing, and exciting. It was like something out of an Indiana Jones movie.
Wars, Trek – whats the difference?
::: runs away from the ensuing 8 page flamefest :::
We saw it at a local brewpub/dollar theater/pizza joint, and tossed back a pitcher of microbrew with great pizza while we watched it. That may have been the perfect way to watch this movie: slightly tipsy and with a bellyful of greasy food. I, too, was laughing till it hurt through a lot of the movie. Sure, a lot was telegraphed; sure, the plot didn’t make too much sense (although I certainly didn’t think it was overly complicated, as some reviewers suggested). I didn’t care: I was there for creative fight sequences and Jack Sparrow goodness, and I got both of them in spades. So I was happy.
Daniel
You win. That’s definitely a great way to watch corny movies.