Mark Burnham’s Review:
The new Pirates movie, At World’s End, is amazing to look at. The camera’s sweep over the Giant Pirate Clubhouse (thousands of pirate ships stacked atop one another in a mountainous heap) is way cool, for one, and all the battles are pretty sweet.

But I also decided a few things while watching the new Pirates movie...besides that Keira Knightley's a babe. Here they are:


#1. Jerry Bruckheimer and Gore Verbinski really are trying to turn a fun movie based on a Disneyland ride into a long, complex “film.” They failed at this in the first movie, which made it a fluke of a success. They’ve now spent two movies trying to make perfectly sure that they overdo every possible aspect of what made the first movie so beloved. And they’re getting better at it with each go.

#2. I think what saved me from slipping into a coma was Depp and Barbosa’s repartees over who commands the ship (once they rescue Jack…8 hours into the film); they have a Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam thing going on that works really well. Some good chuckles.

#3. Which brings me to: Johnny Depp was the only person so far to nail the tone of what these movies should be when he partly based Cap’n Jack Sparrow’s character on Pepe’ Le Pew. Almost everyone else—Pirate Legolas , Tentacle Face, Keira/Leiah, Awful Jamaican Accent Witch Doctor Girl, all of them are squares, and they sink the ship.

#4. Orlando Bloom doesn’t possess the ability to be a compelling character while “rescuing his father,” who’s imprisoned in the bowls of Mr. Tentacle Face’s bitchin’ spooky pirate ship. This is one of Bloom’s main shticks in the new movie. But as soon as he stops whining things like “we’ve got to save her!” I can’t really take him seriously. He’s like, the guy that’s always looking for some tramp. “We’ve-got-to-save-her” worked for him in Troy, it worked in the first Pirates; and also in Kingdom of Heaven. So I think he’s stuck as a pining, whining boy forever buckling his swash. Or he can always be an elf.

#5. Movies about pirates and magic should not be longer than The English Patient.
#6. The storylines for movies about pirates and magic should not attempt to be as complex as A Scanner Darkly. What happens when they do? We get a wet, long, sloppy movie that bores the shit out you by trying to make Shakespeare out of stuff like Mr. Tentacle Face and his Evil Dead Army of Barnacle Bodies.

#7. That would be a sick name for a band, Mr. Tentacle Face & the Evil Dead Army of Barnacle Bodies.



Thia Bonadies’ Review:

Maybe if I cared enough to rent the second movie, or at least re-watched the first one, before I showed up at a screening of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End I would have followed what was happening on the big screen in front of me. Instead, I ended up annoying the shit out of Mark with my constant whisperings into his ear like, “Hey, Mark. What the hell is going on?” His response was always predictably the same: A shaking of his head followed by a shoulder shrug.

So, here’s my review:

It was too long. Although Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom are both extremely pretty, nobody is pretty enough to make me sit in a room for that long when I’m not even sure what the storyline is. Except maybe Marky Mark. Not to be confused with the Mark I was with. Although, he’s pretty too. But Marky Mark…Mmmmmm…Yeah, he’s pretty enough. I’d sit around to watch him for that long. Totally. I guess he’s “Mark Wahlberg” now. Gotta remember that. But, I digress…

The most interesting part of the movie wasn’t anything particular but rather was the ambiguous homo-erotic undertones that followed the characters during this bajillion hour long film. Actually, no, that’s not true. The best part of the movie was in the very beginning when they alluded to a young boy (seven-years-old? Eight?) getting lynched for suspected piracy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not into hanging. Or, the death penalty. Or, dead children. I did, however, get a sick sense of pleasure knowing that a kid was “killed off” within the first five minutes of a movie that just so happened to be playing in a theater filled with young children. I also got a kick out of watching all the PR people, who brought these young children to this theater, drop their jaws and cover their kids’ eyes during a later scene that featured Mr. Bad Guy Tentacle Pirate Dude (never did catch his name) stick his octopus “hand” into some other man’s throat until it popped out of the back of his head. Guess they weren’t kidding when they rated this PG-13, huh?

So, whatever. If you’re a masochist, you’ll highly enjoy this movie. Or, a sadist for that matter, if watching people squirm out of boredom gets you off.

FIN.