JULY STUFF: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (1 in a Series)

I mentioned below that July is a major month for Things I’m Interested In. I’ve decided to attempt to run a series of reviews/recommendations/blatherings about such Things during this worst of months (at least here in Arizona). The first Thing about which I’ve schooled my will to write is The Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.

Now, I’m not actually interested in movies; that is, I don’t care for the art of film in the way I care for literature and popular music and comics and philosophy. So I am out of my depth, or possibly refuse to believe that the entire ocean is not shallow, when I talk critically about movies. (This is, you’ll notice, a decided about-face from the near-universal opinion of the masses; the majority hold no firm opinions on the rest of the arts, but everyone is quite certain that he or she knows when a movie is good or bad. This proves nothing except that movies are the most popular of the popular arts, which we knew already.)

All this to say, that I disagree with the critical consensus (as measured by sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic) that this movie is markedly worse than its predecessor. Of course its predecessor was wonderful, an unlooked-for gift in the midst of summer doldrums three years ago, a blockbuster that was cheerful, witty, and smart, a profoundly satisfying experience for quite a great many people. But I’m not interested in gradations of quality (and am totally unconvinced they exist); what are the other, less-measurable aspects of the movie that makes it the experience it is?

I’ve seen it twice: once alone at a matinee, and the next day with my brother at an evening show. Both times the theaters were stuffed to the gills. Which is a pleasant experience, being with a whole horde of people who are reacting to the same things you are; the slow trickles of laughter cascading around the theater as a slow-burn joke sinks in are especially fun. And I was in a mood to enjoy the movie; I generally don’t expect or want movies to satisfy on any deeper level than sheer entertainment, and actively avoid the kinds that tackle Big Themes and have Deep Insight and win (or deserve) Academy Awards. (Millions of people do likewise with books; someone’s gotta be out there to reverse-snob the movies.) And as entertainment, it satisfied me.

Perhaps this is because my favorite movies are studio comedies of the 1930s and 40s. I like slapstick, quick patter, memorable character acting, and gossamer-thin stories. I like musical comedies, and the modern Hollywood blockbuster generally has the pacing of the Golden Age of musical comedy: an eminently-forgettable plot which only exists to string together the lavish, extended set pieces. Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow is no longer the revelation that he was four years ago; but it’s good to see him blink and mumble onto the screen again like it’s good to see Harpo Marx enter stage right, chasing girl. (But then those same cinéastes criticize Marx Brothers movies, which is the moment when despair prevails and all seems black: the others need Zeppo to counterbalance their lunacy, can’t you see that, you dullwitted thrillseekers?) Anyway, Bill Nighy’s squid-faced Davy Jones has expressions that remind me exactly of Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion, and I don’t think it’s entirely unintentional. He’s a villain, but he’s a pantomime villain.

I’m sympathetic to people who feel that they’re being pummelled into enjoying a movie, and I can understand, I suppose, the exhaustion that many reviewers claim; but (this may sound oxymoronic, but I can’t help that) I see very few movies, so something like this is less chaotic and noisy and exhausting than it would be, I imagine, if I spent every weekend under the glow of immense screens. Thank God I don’t.

Also, I’ve been in trilogy-mode for a while now, listening to the Lord of the Rings on my mp3 player for the past several weeks, so perhaps I’m more forgiving of a movie that wasn’t, after all, meant to stand too precisely on its own feet (the Two Towers is, after all, the worst of the three books — if it were possible to separate the three books like that); its second half comes next summer, and I’ll be interested still, I expect.

* * *

Hmm. And I find I’ve said almost nothing at all about the movie itself. Here’s what sticks in the mind:

• Keira Knightley fancies herself an Actual Actress, after having overplayed Elizabeth Bennett as the weakest link in an otherwise lovable Pride & Prejudice. Still, she’s up to the slight demands of the screenplay, and is looking very tan and Ibiza’d by movie’s end.

• Gosh, Orlando Bloom is skinny as he stomps up out of the ocean to the abandoned Black Pearl. That’s about as memorable as he gets. (Of course, this is the man who was upstaged by his makeup in Lord of the Rings.)

• Shooting an undead monkey: never not funny.

• Spectacular set design; some beautiful shots, often owing more to the National Geographic quality of actual landscapes than any skill on the part of the filmmakers; wonderful costuming and props. (I’m a still-decidedly-amateurish cartoonist: these are the things I have to fiddle with in my own piddling narratives.)
  

• One genuinely creepy moment: the sailor pulling anxiously on a rope that does nothing, over and over again. Then the CGI kicks in, and it’s just a romp.

• Hurtling over the cultural imperialism that bringing up cannibals (apparently imported from the Papua New Guinea region of the globe, if I’m any judge) might necessarily imply, by playing it all strictly for laughs.

• The big reveal of the Kraken’s, uh, mouth. Someone said it was the most hideous male Freudian nightmare in the history of film, which I can see. But then Jack smiles so crookedly, and draws his sword so blithely. (The implication being, perhaps, that Ms. Knightley just found herself replaced?)
  

• The three (later five) supporting-cast sailors. I always find myself more interested in the character actors than in the headlining ones (of course, here, Depp is a character actor too, profoundly so), and subconsciously counting heads after every peril and making sure the midget and Cotton's parrot came through okay made not the least part of my interest in the movie. (You can tell I’m listening to the Lord of the Rings: I’m still talking like fricking Gandalf.)

• And the last five seconds of the film, which made up entirely for the dragginess that was unavoidable with a villain unable to chew scenery as effectively as one whose face is unobscured. That’s a spoiler, by the way. Go see the movie, as if you haven’t already.