To tell you the truth, I wasn't looking for much in this hyped up block-buster. It was largely because of all the hype that I had avoided the first two movies of the series. All I really expected was a couple of hours of mildly entertaining distraction and it was nice to go to the cinema. The ticket price was only $A 7.90, thanks to the terrific people running Cineplex who, along with Centro at New Farm, regularly stick it up the Megaplex Corporations - go you good things!
But, I was surprised to find myself thoroughly engaged by this movie. The cast is terrific: Johnny Depp never fails to impress; Geoffrey Rush looks like he is having fun and Keira Knightly works hard. I always enjoy Tom Hollander's performances ('Cambridge Spies' and 'Pride and Prejudice' especially).
A drawback though was Orlando Bloom. He certainly has the looks to make the teenage girls swoon and his imbd resume seems to be that of a nice solid jobbing British actor. Still, his performance was lack-luster and the chemistry with Knightly not very believable. (I think she did the right thing to send him off to the locker).
To give him credit though, it was probably a hard task to play the straight man and romantic hero beside Depp and Rush who were clearly in their element.
The other thing was the CGI. It certainly holds the movie together but at 168 minutes, there's simply too much of it with unnecessarily long battle scenes. (I'd also ditch the monkey and the macaw but I suppose they're needed to draw in young families).
Despite these minor gripes, I found 'Pirates' much more than 'mildly entertaining'. In fact, it was rollicking good fun. In the end, I was believing in pirates. I knew which side I wanted to be on. Heck, yeah! I was going to fight for freedom!
1 comment:
If you feel like more pirate movies I can particularly recommend Cutthroat Island with Geena Davis as a fantastic female pirate. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112760/ This film really got panned by the critics - but I loved it!
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