9th July, 2006
Revenge of the SPACE PIRATES!
Sunday, 1:28 am in Movies & TV
So Friday night I put my foot down.
“We’re going to see Pirates,” I told ~Mat [h]. “I don’t care if the only session is on at 11pm, I’m seeing Pirates tonight.”
Fortunatley, the only session wasn’t at 11; there was a much more appropriate showing at 8:40. So after a trendy and not-qute-as-good-as-it-should be meal at Milk & Honey* we wandered off to the cinema, only to be greeted by the revenge of the pirate nerds. I suppose you get that on first-day showings; people in tricorn hats and full on Navy uniform. There were a lot of “Arr!”s and “Me hearties!” during the trailers**, which reached fever-pitch during the first few minutes of the film. The first few very sombre moment of the movie. It’s kind of hard to appreciate the gravity of a situation when someone two rows over from you is yelling, “Yarr, shut yer holes y’ scurvey landlubbers!”
Eventually the pirates in the peanut gallery calmed down (at least until the first appearance of Captain Jack) and I settled in for two and a half hours of movie. Two and a half hours in which many swashes were buckled, and much daring was done. Dead Man’s Chest has some truly hilarious moments, as well as some quite grim and horrific ones (though thankfully only one real cheap scare), and it’s very enjoyable…
… it’s very enjoyable. But.
I mean, the thing goes for nearly three fucking hours! After a while all the exciting swashbuckling just gets to be, well, a bit too much swashbuckling. It’s just a bit too much fun for a bit too long, and despite there a plot that is soap-operish in its ludicrous complexity, nothing really seems to happen (watch the monkey; it’s foreshadowing). Despite the lucious visuals, Johnny Depp hamming it up and Hans Zimmer’s reworking of Klaus Badelt’s stunning original score I just couldn’t get myself into this film in the way I did its predecessor. Eventually I realised what it was; there is an almost total lack of homosocial engagement between Jack and Will. And – moreso than anything else – that’s what really ‘made’ the first film for me. That whole undercurrent of semi-repressed homoeroticism between the two lead male characters is pretty much entierley missing from Dead Man’s Chest, and has instead been replaced by a kind of fall-from-grace relationship between Jack and Elizabeth that – quite frankly – really turned me right off. It’s odd, considered that Elizabeth is probably 80% less irritating than 90% of female heroines out there; she spends most of the film dressed in a frock coat and tights, and has a great kung-fu-esque swordfight with Pintel, Ragetti and a tribe of cannibals. Not to mention wins Best Line with her “let’s just start bashing away at each other” beach scene. And yeah okay, Jack represents freedom and Elizabeth wants to be free from the strictures of 18th century noble life I get it… but are we really that unimaginative that we can’t think of any better way to represent this than an inane (and very status quo, and somewhat distasteful) ‘romance’?
The Jack/Will buddy-movie angle has been ditched for this sadomasochistic romance, with the side effect that I found all the characters stilted and unlikable (yes, even Jack)… Okay, Tia Dalma the Troll Priest voodoo witchdoctor was cool, in a cameo kind of way.
In case you haven’t heard by now (I hadn’t), nothing is resolved in Dead Man’s Chest. After two hours fourty and more backstabbings than rolling around in a knife factory, all we get for our troubles is a vaguely unsatisfying TO BE CONTINUED… I guess I’ll just have to wait a couple of years to see, exactly, how the whole thing resolves, but at the moment I can’t help but feel a little sadness in the depths of my slashy heart.
And the compass had such potential as a plot device!
But all this is okay, because I’m currently preoccupied with the Tenth Doctor.
One of these days I’m going to run into Russell T. Davies and give him a great big kiss for so brillirantly re-inventing Doctor Who. Watching “The Christmas Invasion” tonight, as well as the first four episodes of the 2006 series ‘proper’, and there are just so many things I love about the New (and New) Doctor. I love the ‘Lonely God’ stuff. I love the way the Doctor says so threateningly that when he was young he was “full of mercy”. I love David Tennant’s emo glasses and the way he can go from Byronesque wonder to dreadfully intense and back again all in the same scene. I love the – extremely daring – exploration of the Doctor’s sexuality and romantic feelings (one of the things I loved from the OrmanBlum 8th Doctor novels). I love the pastiche and the sillyness and how it swings back and forth between that and sci-fi horror and gravitas with the speed and grace of a well-produced anime.*** I love Rose and the Doctor’s relationship.
It’s 1:30am and I’m not very coherent… but did I mention? Me. Doctor Who. Love.
* Okay, you got me. I only like Milk & Honey because it’s sleek and trendy, and sometimes I just want to go hang out in trendy Civic cafe-restraunts. Oh, and there’s a guy who works there that I swear I went to college with, though I can’t for the life of me remember a) his name, or b) actually doing any college-type activities with him. He’s just familiar.
** Nothing good, alas. I wouldn’t be lying if I said 70% of the reason I go to the cinemas is to see trailers. Oh, and I want to arrest everyone involved in the creation of Little Big Man for crimes against humanity.
*** An odd compliment, I know, but when it comes to rollercoaster rides of emotion, it seems the Japanese have it figured in a way western writers generally don’t.
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Dead Man Walking is 2:40, for a To be continued? You are joking? That sounds like such a chore to sit through - though actually now I think about it, maybe 2:40’s not as bad as it sounds.
As for the Good Doctor, I’ve missed the last four or five episodes, and as such missed the last episode which reveals exactly how -[snip!]
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I’m such a spacktard.
…though actually now I think about it, maybe 2:40’s not as bad as it sounds.Completely managed to miss this in your post:
I mean, the thing goes for nearly three fucking hours! […] It’s just a bit too much fun for a bit too long…Yes. 2:40 is probably as bad as it sounds, then. Must. Concentrate. Harder. When. Reading.
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… exactly how Rose gets trapped in the alternate dimension Earth with Mickey and her parents? Oh yeah, spoilers? What’re those! Hurry up and torrent, eps 12 and 13 (it’s a race to see if I can download them in the next 11 weeks while the TV catches up with me)!
Poor Doctor. It was so nicely foreshadowed, though; while everyone’s busy thinking Torchwood is this season’s Bad Wolf, they suckerpunch us with the love&loss theme. If there’s one thing left in this world that makes my bitter black heart go all swoony, it’s a sad Doctor.
About Pirates… I dunno. It wasn’t that it was painful to watch, exactly. But you know how in some movies you kind pop out of suspended disbelief land and think, “Gosh, this is long!” before getting engaged again? Well, it was one of those films. There are lots of fun fight scenes, but outside of those there’s not really much emotional meat in the film. No Jack/Will makes a sad sad Dee.
