Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Just watched Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.
Now despite being a staunch pirate defender in the age old geek debate pirates versus ninjas (i personally like to throw cowboys in there too) i'm not a huge fan of the first film. Thought it was ok, but nothing particualry pleasing to me beyond some undead Pirates and it contained some things i really dislike (mostly Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley).
Dead Man's Chest is a messy, overblown, over complicated and generally unfunny two and a half hours.
But when the film gets it right, it really gets it.
The performances range from the really bad (a lot of the pirate filler crew and especially Mackenzie Crooks lamentable 'comedy' relief), charisma-less bland (Knightley and Bloom) to the neatly observed (Stellan Skarsgaard as Bootstrap Bill and Tom Hollander's smarmy bad guy) and the inspired (the Bill Nighy/CGI Davy Jones).
The film has a very bad pacing problem with most of the first hour being a dull, pointless ramble before gearing up with the appearance of Davy Jones and his accursed crew.
Indeed the whole sequence set on an cannibal inhabited island could be skipped with little effect, it adds nothing to the overly talky but stangely sketchy plot.
There is much fun to be had in the three way sword fight and the film comes truely alive whenever the kraken attacks.
The design work is all top notch and interesting visually, Davy Jones' crew being an inspired and eclectic mix of creatures and men, gruesome monstrosities sure to delight and scare children in equal measure.
No comments:
Post a Comment