One of my least favorite things to do is to go to a theme park and get on one of those boring, dumbed-down rides and pretend I’m having a good time along with the rest of the “We Don’t Get Out Much” Club. The “Pirates of The Caribbean” ride at Disneyland is one of those experiences. You have to be about seven years-old to enjoy it. You can then imagine the trouble I had pulling myself into the theatre to sit through this.
One of my first concerns was “how are they going to sustain a story here for over two hours?” Amazingly, they did. The full title of the movie includes “The Curse of The Black Pearl”- this refers to the legend of a ghost ship said to haunt the Caribbean waters in what appears to be the late nineteenth century.
Johnny Depp plays the once and future captain of that pirate ship, Jack Sparrow. He was dethroned and replaced by Geoffrey Rush. They are both on missions. Depp wants his ship back and Rush needs to find a solution to the “curse”, which has left both he and the crew in a miserable situation.
Tacked on to all of this is the more typical love story theme – the wealthy daughter of a British politician(Keira Knightley) is scheduled to marry a top military commander, but is really in love with a lowly blacksmith, played by Orlando Bloom. I’ll pass right by this because it’s cliché ridden despite hard working performances by the two stars. Let’s just say it fills the time without being too annoying and every Disney movie must have a pair of fated, mismatched (one rich, one poor) lovers.
Let’s move on to the good stuff and that’s Depp and Rush. Quite simply, they make this movie go. Depp’s character Sparrow can best be described as a cross between Errol Flynn and Dudley Mooore’s Arthur the drunk from the early 1980’s movies. With a little bit of a drag queen thrown in. Wild sounding, isn’t it? You have to see it to really enjoy it, but with the mascara around his eyes, his hands sometimes waving in the air and his vaguely drunk, vaguely gay manner, Depp has created one completely original pirate.
He seems to have no plan, no real motives and yet he stumbles his way through constantly making the other guy think he’s an easy mark. After Rush and his pirates kidnap our leading lady, Depp teams up with Bloom to find her and that works well because we have two stories to follow and either Depp or Rush to watch in just about every scene.
But when they finally cross paths near the end, it gets even better. Rush plays the evil pirate ghost to perfection. Guys like him keep their plans simple and their motivations clear – which in this case is ending that curse.
What didn’t work too well are the battle scenes – they come off like the pirate show which plays outside of “Treasure Island” in Las Vegas – staged and phony. It helped that two of the pirate ghosts were just comical enough to enjoy, especially the one who keeps losing his eyeball.
“The Pirates of The Caribbean” defies the odds with a very involved and even logical storyline, but Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush are the only reasons to spend any money on it. Depp plays easily the funniest and most imaginative character I’ve seen in a long time. I give the movie an “8.0” on the scale.
Wednesday, July 9th, 2003
Wow – a sequel to a sequel twelve years in the making! John Connor (played now by Nick Stahl), the guy who will save mankind from extermination by the machines, is now about twenty-three years old and is ready for the next phase of his fated mission. If you think you’ve already seen this plot with “The Matrix Reloaded”, remember, the “Terminator” people were first.
Plus, the added attraction is that Connor gets help from one of the machines, the relentless and imposing robot played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Programmed to save John Connor’s life, he’s dropped into the present via the old time travel machine. Arnold again shows up nude and wastes no time going to work by stopping by a neighborhood bar. It happens to be ladies night, complete with a male stripper show and Arnold fits right in. It’s a perfect start because it presents the right comedic touch. Unless you’re into endless chase scenes and smashing special effects (not that there’s anything wrong with that), the complement to all of this is the deadpan work of Arnold and his robot nemesis, the “terminator” programmed to kill John Connor. Like “Spock” in the old “Star Trek” series, they only follow preprogrammed orders and logic- leaving them confused by much of human behavior.
This time the evil robot is played by a woman (Kristanna Loken – a model in real life), and like the guy in “Terminator 2”, she’s got some upgrade advantages over Arnold. Too bad she spends most of the movie looking so beautiful though, it takes away from some of the evil you need to truly invest yourself emotionally. You might also wonder why she has to use a good old fashioned gun in a few instances when it’s clear she has the ability to get the job done much quicker and much deadlier. But I was able to suspend that flaw because, in many cases, the action scenes in this movie are eye popping and creative.
Check out the remote controlled police and fire truck chase scene with our evil robot lady trailing behind driving a massive construction crane. With Arnold hanging on for “dear life” (or is it “dear circuitry”), that baby barrels through buildings with ease. The audience shrieked – I laughed. (well, it was more like “that’s gotta hurt, but not really, he’s a machine”)
For you romantics, Connor’s Mom is gone, but we get a new female character to care about and that’s a woman played by Claire Danes. There is a real story here about how she and Connor are fated to get together and it’s all beginning to sound like the “Star Wars” movie plots, but what the heck, it fills the breaks from the action scenes. In fact, thanks to Nick Stahl and Claire Danes, two very good actors, you might actually care about the fate of mankind. Just try to ignore the conversation they have with Arnold over their futures- very confusing.
But as for me, give me more of Arnold versus the “Fembot” and I’m set. Hang on for the big fight scene when she and Arnold destroy a rest room- I think it was a men’s room because I saw some urinals, but it doesn’t matter, I found it all a hoot.
“Terminator 3: Rise of The Machines” rather shamelessly sets us up for a sequel (Nick Stahl says he’s signed on for two more), like so many movies seem to be doing these days, but I can deal with that. Of course, the big question is- did “Governor Schwarzenegger” sign on for more? How’s that going to work? Ah, let’s just live for today – I give “Terminator 3” a “7.0” on the scale.
