I saw 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest' today with Zach and Oniel. Of all of the things that I could have done to celebrate seeing Zach for the first time since before I left for Ireland, this was not the most auspicious thing to pick. Frankly, the movie was disappointing, even moreso that it would have been if it were just boring.
[warning: spoilers follow, for those of you who haven't seen it--which, judging by the box office numbers, probably only includes my parents ;) if you don't want to know, skip until the 'no spoilers' section below]
The writers and producers of this movie didn't seem to understand what made the first 'Pirates' movie so successful. No one cared about the plot, or even about all the explosions--what made the movie special was the interaction between the characters, the occasional moments of surprising character development, and the chance to see all of the main characters do exceptionally crafty things or plan ahead in clever ways. This movie attempted to create a plot to span two movies, and because so much of this movie was set-up for the third movie, the three main characters (Captain Jack Sparrow, Will Turner, and Elizabeth) went their separate ways for most of the movie--and none of them are as entertaining alone as they are with each other. There was far too much focus on how 'cool' the sea-creature special effects were, and about twenty minutes' too much usage of the Kraken. Surprisingly, I thought some of the best lines came from Commodore Norrington, who was really a one-dimensional bit part, but allowed to grow a beard for this particular outing.
But the worst was that none of the main characters developed in ways that made me love them, and two of the three of them did things that seemed uncomfortably out of character. Sparrow going valiantly to his doom with the Kraken would have seemed heroic and tragic if he hadn't spent most of the movie either absent or being an ass--for instance, it was never explained why it was necessary to send Will on a suicide mission, nor did he do anything to rectify the situation. And the whole thing with Elizabeth and Sparrow was just weird--granted, pirates are hotter than 'good guys', but in this particular movie, Will Turner seemed more clever than Sparrow, despite being held back by all his heroism and morals.
I guess the problem for me was that I felt some level of affection for the characters after the first movie, and this movie destroyed a lot of my good will towards them. I know I'm overreacting--but I would have the same reaction if they made a fourth 'Lord of the Rings' and Aragorn turned into an alcoholic. I'll still see the third one in hopes that they can redeem themselves--and I hope that the writers turn out a halfway-decent effort and aren't the same people who turned out 'Matrix: Revolutions'. And also, this wasn't as bad as many of the other movies I've dragged my friends to, so I can still be redeemed!
[end spoilers]
I spent the rest of the day doing some desultory unpacking, with a trip to Target to get a trashcan for my kitchen and some necessary hardware to hang some shelves. Tomorrow, I have more errands to run, and then I need to get rid of all of the boxes that have accumulated in my apartment--this means either recycling them here, or dumping them clandestinely on Stanford campus or at my place of employment. It's been lovely having a three-day weekend--this was my first weekend in my apartment in a month, and I desperately needed it. Now, it's time for bed--hopefully I'll wake up at a decent hour tomorrow so I can accomplish something, but don't hold your breath.
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