Pirates III: At Trilogy's End
May. 26th, 2007 11:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinSwashbuckling! Effects! Just enough Romance! Packed full of Plot and Characters!
I have to admit this is one of very few movies whose soundtrack I heard before seeing it ... usually I avoid such things, but at the time I cared more about Hans Zimmer than the movie. And, seriously – this is one of his best scores. It's ferociously swashbuckling, and diverse, and thrilling, and ... wow. It was fantastic just to listen to, and yet when I saw the movie it was like hearing it for the first time. If you remember the Last of the Mohicans score (one of the all-time classics of movie scoredom, at least in the non-John Williams category, it seems) it's kind of like that, only with more sub-themes, fuller orchestration, and ... more ... Zimmeryness.
Mr Zimmer is still up to his old tricks though, at least within the confines of my brain. In a few of his scores he's used opening bars of rather obscure orchestral music which I've happened to have played – Muppet Treasure Island uses the opening of 'Folk Tune and Fiddle Dance' by (I think) Peter Warlock, Prince of Egypt's main theme borrows from 'Processiion of the Sardar' by Ippolitov-Ivanov, and for a while he seemed determined to fit the old chant melody of 'Dies Irae' into everything somewhere (It's in Lion King and El Dorado (as Cortez's theme) for example). In Pirates III, he uses the tune of the round whose lyrics go 'Hey, ho, nobody's home/Meat nor drink nor money have I/Still I will be merry...' I don't know what it's called or if it's possible to find a recording of it but I remember being enthralled by it in Grade 4. Also, the 'Parlay' track is, in all but melody line, lifted straight out of Once Upon a Time in the West. I was relieved, upon seeing the movie, that the scene it accompanies is somewhat Western, but it would have gone right over my head without the music.
Movie time!
Overall: I have to admit I was not greatly taken with Pirates II. It annoyed me. It seemed to be playing to the "the only thing people like more than ___ is MORE ___" which has injured Harry Potter and Peter Jackson among others in recent times. It might have had a decent plot but it was so bogged down by interminable action sequences that served little purpose aside from context for gags or amusing stuntwork that it was hard to tell what the plot was or, indeed, which plotline mattered. THIS time around, though, there's so much plot crammed in to all 168 minutes that they don't have time to pad it out, and it licks along in such an entertaining manner that even though I found it hard to keep all the characters' motivations straight I didn't really care. It was really, really entertaining. And it felt like it was about five hours long ... but it didn't feel like it was long for the sake of being long. I'm curious to see how much faster it goes the second time. (And there will be a second time. It was that entertaining.) This is my theory for what happened: the writers went to a pub and had an all-night brainstorming session that was exceptionally fun and loony, with tangents flying off everywhere and gags thrown in all over, creativity sloshing around and filtered through some very silly people. I've been at gatherings like this, and you can come up with some pretty crazy stuff. The difference with this one was that someone actually took notes, so instead of trying to remember everything that'd been tossed around the night before and pinning down only half of it, they had everything, and could then cram it all in.
Opening sequence: Mass hangings! Cool! Well, I mean ... not ... really ... but what a way to start a movie! I think: Gee, this is getting a bit political, isn't it? Suspending/revoking things anachronistically famous for being in the Bill of Rights but are probably in the Magna Carta or something. This isn't going to be a Statement Movie is it? The movie answers: No! All you get is this extremely cool song, then we move on to swashbuckling!
Singapore: Does it really have that many mountains? I thought Hong Kong was the mountain place. Only ever seen pictures from the 20th century. Set design looks awesome nonetheless. We have a fantastic song and now an underground resistance movement (which regular readers may remember I am a sucker for) of pirates. Dude. And then an explosion at the fireworks factory, as must happen.
And then there's Jack's little afterlife or purgatory or whatever ... What a charming little piece of totally surreal cinema. I could have watched that for hours. There's no reason surreal + cinema has to = boring/impenetrable/non-linear. Seeing the track title 'Multiple Jacks' made me think there was going to be some sort of reference to parallel universes or something, and I kept thinking during this part that someone was bound to say 'Oh dear, it's all gone quantum!'
Hehehe, Rimfall. Win. Also, just a little bit Sinbad [Dreamworks]. Sinbad also had a sea of sand in the world past the edge, only in that the sand moved like waves and there were no ships (I think), whereas in this, as you'll all know from the trailer, the ship does move but the sand is stationary. ... going into way too much detail ... moving on ...
The gag with the sound from the ride ... love it. I was almost hoping Jack's place of eternal confinement and punishment(?) was the ride. Because they've got an animatronic Sparrow in there now. And then – and then – the crew of the Black Pearl could, like, ride in one of the ride boats to save him! Down the little waterfalls and stuff! Dude! I should have written this movie!
All of Keira Knightley's costumes were awesome and looked fabulous on her. Go fig.
The Green Flash: I love it. I love it when people throw actual scientific things into something that is otherwise utter fantasy, somehow it gives it a greater credibility. The Green Flash is an actual phenomenon in which a green flare appears at sunset. It's very rare, and I don't think they really know what causes it (something atmospheric?) and it certainly isn't as massive as in the movie, but ... it's real, man.
Okay, yes, there's less Jack Sparrow than in previous films, and yes, I am not a Sparrow fangirl, but come on – was Barbossa not awesome? I mean, really! Funny, thing, though ... I had to design a pirate captain for the show I'm on, and I gave him a fore-and-aft hat, but they wanted 'a hat like Barbossa's,' so for the first ten minutes he was in, my brain was chattering 'that's the hat I drew! that's my hat! hahaha! hat!' whenever he was onscreen. Dur.
Every time I watch a Pirates film I see those two soldiers/guardsmen and think 'Hey, it's Nobby and Colon!' (Well, Colon, anyway; the skinny one isn't as Nobby as Nobby is, but the double-act is there.) Every time. And every time I forget that they're in the films, so it's like a new surprise when I see them again and think 'Hey, it's Nobby and Colon!' At least it leaves me with a big dorky grin whenever they're onscreen.
Bizarro and his pies. Fab.
SMALL SPOILER ALERT!
One of the few small things that bugged me: just before they flip the boat, it's sunset (big fat obvious plot point), but during the ensuing discussion and action, it's lit like mid-day. Then the sun sets and it's dark! And the water drains and it's sunrise! Wha? Was this a badly-lit pickup scene or what? It seems too crucial a scene to have been a pickup, but what other explanation is there?
SLIGHTLY LARGER SPOILER ALERT!
Another thing that bugged me a little more were the deaths of Chow-Yun Fat (don't remember the character's name) and Norrington, Norrington especially. They didn't seem ... all there. Don't really have much more to say about that besides 'if you're going to kill a character, make it emotionally gratifying in some way.' Same problem with Sirius. I thought perhaps Norrington was going to stab Davy Jones' heart, because he's the responsible type and would take up the duty admirably (ahahaha, pun) and would give him a bit of purpose in the plot, but that was before I saw the end of the movie.
Best movie wedding ever.
Jumping around in time a bit: When Elizabeth sees her dad, and he talks about whoever kills Davy Jones has to take his place ... I thought that's what he had done. Why else would he be talking about it? Oh, you mean shoehorned exposition? This movie's fun enough that I feel mean nitpicking like that but it was the one moment that lifted the curtain enough to see the scriptwriters going 'Argh, how do we expose this crucial plot point? Oh, just have her dad say it and sandwich it with some emotional stuff.'
Well, that's about all I can remember ... UNTIL NEXT TIME. Mwahaha.
I have to admit this is one of very few movies whose soundtrack I heard before seeing it ... usually I avoid such things, but at the time I cared more about Hans Zimmer than the movie. And, seriously – this is one of his best scores. It's ferociously swashbuckling, and diverse, and thrilling, and ... wow. It was fantastic just to listen to, and yet when I saw the movie it was like hearing it for the first time. If you remember the Last of the Mohicans score (one of the all-time classics of movie scoredom, at least in the non-John Williams category, it seems) it's kind of like that, only with more sub-themes, fuller orchestration, and ... more ... Zimmeryness.
Mr Zimmer is still up to his old tricks though, at least within the confines of my brain. In a few of his scores he's used opening bars of rather obscure orchestral music which I've happened to have played – Muppet Treasure Island uses the opening of 'Folk Tune and Fiddle Dance' by (I think) Peter Warlock, Prince of Egypt's main theme borrows from 'Processiion of the Sardar' by Ippolitov-Ivanov, and for a while he seemed determined to fit the old chant melody of 'Dies Irae' into everything somewhere (It's in Lion King and El Dorado (as Cortez's theme) for example). In Pirates III, he uses the tune of the round whose lyrics go 'Hey, ho, nobody's home/Meat nor drink nor money have I/Still I will be merry...' I don't know what it's called or if it's possible to find a recording of it but I remember being enthralled by it in Grade 4. Also, the 'Parlay' track is, in all but melody line, lifted straight out of Once Upon a Time in the West. I was relieved, upon seeing the movie, that the scene it accompanies is somewhat Western, but it would have gone right over my head without the music.
Movie time!
Overall: I have to admit I was not greatly taken with Pirates II. It annoyed me. It seemed to be playing to the "the only thing people like more than ___ is MORE ___" which has injured Harry Potter and Peter Jackson among others in recent times. It might have had a decent plot but it was so bogged down by interminable action sequences that served little purpose aside from context for gags or amusing stuntwork that it was hard to tell what the plot was or, indeed, which plotline mattered. THIS time around, though, there's so much plot crammed in to all 168 minutes that they don't have time to pad it out, and it licks along in such an entertaining manner that even though I found it hard to keep all the characters' motivations straight I didn't really care. It was really, really entertaining. And it felt like it was about five hours long ... but it didn't feel like it was long for the sake of being long. I'm curious to see how much faster it goes the second time. (And there will be a second time. It was that entertaining.) This is my theory for what happened: the writers went to a pub and had an all-night brainstorming session that was exceptionally fun and loony, with tangents flying off everywhere and gags thrown in all over, creativity sloshing around and filtered through some very silly people. I've been at gatherings like this, and you can come up with some pretty crazy stuff. The difference with this one was that someone actually took notes, so instead of trying to remember everything that'd been tossed around the night before and pinning down only half of it, they had everything, and could then cram it all in.
Opening sequence: Mass hangings! Cool! Well, I mean ... not ... really ... but what a way to start a movie! I think: Gee, this is getting a bit political, isn't it? Suspending/revoking things anachronistically famous for being in the Bill of Rights but are probably in the Magna Carta or something. This isn't going to be a Statement Movie is it? The movie answers: No! All you get is this extremely cool song, then we move on to swashbuckling!
Singapore: Does it really have that many mountains? I thought Hong Kong was the mountain place. Only ever seen pictures from the 20th century. Set design looks awesome nonetheless. We have a fantastic song and now an underground resistance movement (which regular readers may remember I am a sucker for) of pirates. Dude. And then an explosion at the fireworks factory, as must happen.
And then there's Jack's little afterlife or purgatory or whatever ... What a charming little piece of totally surreal cinema. I could have watched that for hours. There's no reason surreal + cinema has to = boring/impenetrable/non-linear. Seeing the track title 'Multiple Jacks' made me think there was going to be some sort of reference to parallel universes or something, and I kept thinking during this part that someone was bound to say 'Oh dear, it's all gone quantum!'
Hehehe, Rimfall. Win. Also, just a little bit Sinbad [Dreamworks]. Sinbad also had a sea of sand in the world past the edge, only in that the sand moved like waves and there were no ships (I think), whereas in this, as you'll all know from the trailer, the ship does move but the sand is stationary. ... going into way too much detail ... moving on ...
The gag with the sound from the ride ... love it. I was almost hoping Jack's place of eternal confinement and punishment(?) was the ride. Because they've got an animatronic Sparrow in there now. And then – and then – the crew of the Black Pearl could, like, ride in one of the ride boats to save him! Down the little waterfalls and stuff! Dude! I should have written this movie!
All of Keira Knightley's costumes were awesome and looked fabulous on her. Go fig.
The Green Flash: I love it. I love it when people throw actual scientific things into something that is otherwise utter fantasy, somehow it gives it a greater credibility. The Green Flash is an actual phenomenon in which a green flare appears at sunset. It's very rare, and I don't think they really know what causes it (something atmospheric?) and it certainly isn't as massive as in the movie, but ... it's real, man.
Okay, yes, there's less Jack Sparrow than in previous films, and yes, I am not a Sparrow fangirl, but come on – was Barbossa not awesome? I mean, really! Funny, thing, though ... I had to design a pirate captain for the show I'm on, and I gave him a fore-and-aft hat, but they wanted 'a hat like Barbossa's,' so for the first ten minutes he was in, my brain was chattering 'that's the hat I drew! that's my hat! hahaha! hat!' whenever he was onscreen. Dur.
Every time I watch a Pirates film I see those two soldiers/guardsmen and think 'Hey, it's Nobby and Colon!' (Well, Colon, anyway; the skinny one isn't as Nobby as Nobby is, but the double-act is there.) Every time. And every time I forget that they're in the films, so it's like a new surprise when I see them again and think 'Hey, it's Nobby and Colon!' At least it leaves me with a big dorky grin whenever they're onscreen.
Bizarro and his pies. Fab.
SMALL SPOILER ALERT!
One of the few small things that bugged me: just before they flip the boat, it's sunset (big fat obvious plot point), but during the ensuing discussion and action, it's lit like mid-day. Then the sun sets and it's dark! And the water drains and it's sunrise! Wha? Was this a badly-lit pickup scene or what? It seems too crucial a scene to have been a pickup, but what other explanation is there?
SLIGHTLY LARGER SPOILER ALERT!
Another thing that bugged me a little more were the deaths of Chow-Yun Fat (don't remember the character's name) and Norrington, Norrington especially. They didn't seem ... all there. Don't really have much more to say about that besides 'if you're going to kill a character, make it emotionally gratifying in some way.' Same problem with Sirius. I thought perhaps Norrington was going to stab Davy Jones' heart, because he's the responsible type and would take up the duty admirably (ahahaha, pun) and would give him a bit of purpose in the plot, but that was before I saw the end of the movie.
Best movie wedding ever.
Jumping around in time a bit: When Elizabeth sees her dad, and he talks about whoever kills Davy Jones has to take his place ... I thought that's what he had done. Why else would he be talking about it? Oh, you mean shoehorned exposition? This movie's fun enough that I feel mean nitpicking like that but it was the one moment that lifted the curtain enough to see the scriptwriters going 'Argh, how do we expose this crucial plot point? Oh, just have her dad say it and sandwich it with some emotional stuff.'
Well, that's about all I can remember ... UNTIL NEXT TIME. Mwahaha.
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-27 10:15 pm (UTC)