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Review of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest last night after a great deal of waiting and bouncing and wailing and squeeing in equal part. It's had massively mixed reviews...it's going to get one here, certainly, but I do want to point out that (aside from certain more than dubious stuff in the opening half), my overriding impression was that it was riotous fun...some great acting, laugh out loud humour in places and enough tension that it didn't lose my attention in the whole two and half hours. I actually followed the plot - I recognise the absurd and inexplicable holes and 'but why' moments, but I could follow every character's motivation throughout and I never found it less than gripping and extravagently entertaining. I think the critics who blasted the plot holes most severely weren't going primarily to be entertained.
Um. I'm going to start with the horrible stuff, then I'm going to go on and squee about the rest of the film in a pretty appalling way that's going to make me want to stamp on my own toes, but I would quite like to end the review on a high note and forget the existence of the lowest. This film, in parts, is racist. There are several scenes to take issue with - the excising of the Indian pirate (who I was initially rather pleased to see) and the stereotypical representation of Tia and her community are two that have been commented on - on top of a pervading sense of imbalance (not helped in the least by the surprising lack of Ana-Maria), but the most obvious is the early digression that introduces us to a tribe of cannibals.
Five minutes' Googling makes it clear to a historical know-nothing such as myself that whatever excuses the producers feel they can draw on - if they believe themselves untouchable because they didn't name the tribe, or because it's a work of fiction, or because the tone is so outrageous you can't take any of it to heart - they are perpetuating a literary trope and historical myth (that Caribs were cannibals) that was used to subjugate people: to render them less than human and make their conquerors feel justified in enslaving them. Very few characters in the film are presented in anything approaching a good light, but this is a case of applying a known taboo regarded as the essence of uncivilised behaviour to the film's largest portrayal of an entire race. In spite of the protests of the Dominican citizens, Disney carried on regardless claiming that the scenes were integral to the plot. Well, that was a lie. I'm guessing they just didn't want to lose their jokes. There were some funny moments - I did enjoy the swinging spherical cages, and if you decontextualise it, a man in fear of being eaten inadvertantly turning himself into a giant kebab is a great sight gag. But this could've been excised. Integral to the plot is not always an excuse, even if it's true.
To lazily lift a comment I made to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
slemslempike word for word, I would like to know precisely what the producers thought they were doing repeating patently offensive tropes, even in a pantomime-esque setting, without including a smidgeon of criticism - even if they'd managed to square it with their own consciences, and I suppose they must've done seeing as they went ahead with it, they must've realised how it was going to be received. You can sort of see the thought processes going on...let's explain the funny line from the first film, 'And then they made me their chief' (so much funnier prior to any sort of explanation whatsoever, but still)...and a 180 degree turnaround from being considered a god is being eaten by those who worship you, so let's go with that. And then you'd think common sense at least might've kicked in. The only way Tim Burton in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory could render the whole notion of the Oompa Loompas something close to inoffensive is to have them one foot tall and played by a single actor, putting them so far into the fantasy bracket that the audience begins to feel it's a stretch to draw a concrete analogy. Drawing on known and much-reviled stereotypes really doesn't fit into that remit.
So basically I wish that stuff hadn't happened and I hope it doesn't again.
...
From the reviews I've read - the fannish ones - there are a lot of concerns about certain folks' wandering out of character or losing direction entirely (which is a biggish theme in Pirates 2). I'm nodding quite severely at that observation, especially in regards to Jack. Having said that, on thinking over it again (and again), possible explanations for errant behaviour do come to light. I should've noted where this comment came from (reminder to self to do that), but it's criticising the moment when Elizabeth holds the compass and the needle points to Jack Sparrow, indicating that's he what she most wants:
'Using her kiss to chain him to the mast, yes. Actually wanting him? No. And I thought they pushed it too hard. I feel as though the writers have confused Jack Sparrow with Johnny Depp. Where as Johnny Depp is actually God's Gift, Jack Sparrow simply thinks he is.'
My answer to that would be that, as with the Pearl, it's not just Sparrow she wants but what he represents, or what she feels he represents. What certain physical objects of desire represent is possibly more significant than what they are in this film. Jack's wanting the Pearl is symptomatic of his desire to be free. So Elizabeth's wanting Jack is also about that one night she spent being allowed to be drunk and reckless because she was in his company. Ultimately, being like him enabled her to sacrifice him to save her own life and those of the crew...so during those dangerous moments, perhaps she genuinely did want to lose her conscience and feel free to act in whatever way served her best. I'm guessing she doesn't want anything of the sort now. She seemed pretty much devastated by the end. Anway, I thought Elizabeth, on the whole, was great (throwing rocks at the silly boys and just being generally very clever and resourceful), if unrealistically good with a sword, but that's the sort of lack or realism that's never really bothered me in this series. Character flaws are worse.
Jack is more problematic, and I was a little unsettled by his astonishing lack of focus at the beginning. This was always a danger for a character so obviously savvy and superficially absurd, but Jack has become a bit clownish. He's the one who suffers most from the sequel's 'playing the old hits' syndrome. He was so fresh and new and uncopyable in the first film...now he seems to be going through his old gags (which very rarely worked the second time around: the first mention of rum met the stoniest silence I've ever encountered) to get the applause, which is frankly pretty sad. His floundering made an amount of sense when he was forced to flee the seas and found himself all at land, but before the threat was made concrete, I don't know. It was totally at odds with the confident end of Pirates 1, where he knows precisely what he wants and where he's going. The horizon. I suppose you can argue that he got fed up with being unable to find it. Oh hang on. He knew the 13 years was coming up and he knew that the sea was about to become entirely unsafe for him. Now, that would've flummoxed him. Land will protect him. He clings to a jar of land, of all things. So I'm increasingly reassured that staring hard at the flaws does seem to throw up a few possibilities. Perhaps I can write unsettling weirdness off as depth then. Good. But I do miss his ever-present enterprise and flourish, thatironicdutchess pointed out was sorely lacking. I want him to have ideas again.
I don't want to talk about Will.
I adore that Norrington's falling apart is canon. Oh god, Norrington. I love him painfully much and his actually quite successfully delayed entrance (the lack of him was growing annoying but it really made the moment) was just stunning. His voice! His angry carefree swagger. The fact that he really does want to be Jack Sparrow, or have Jack Sparrow or some such thing. I adore that they made my fic canonically sound (more or less - though I wish I'd known about the compass). I hope he gets the shininess and the wig back for the third film, but I think degeneration makes a great choice for his character development.
The plot was undeniably everywhere. Quest after quest and few of them with a real resolution...gathering 99 souls in three days to trade for Sparrow's life (or Will's servitude - maybe I didn't follow it as closely as I thought) went nowhere because Will simply managed to escape. But that actually didn't bother me...I quite like that some of the ideas just failed or became redundant as other plot points turned up. It lacked easy or happy endings. Maybe it was just confusion and a lack of focus on the part of the writing team, but I'm going to think of it as a weird touch of realism. Anyway, it really helped the pacing.
It didn't bother me particularly that we had no explanation as to why Davy Jones can remove his heart and carry on all the same, or what precisely the heart enables the holder to do (turn away the Kraken? Is that what 'controlling the seas' means? Or do you have to destroy the heart?). Or what the jar of dirt was for and why it didn't really come into play. That sort of thing bothers me hugely in Dr Who, but that doesn't have so many pirates. Pirates stop me from caring. Like the crew's failing to care enough for the peripheral characters who died (often due to Jack's selfishness) when they're prepared to go to the end of the earth of Jack. Well...you know...he is played by Johnny Depp. I also kind of loved the crazy triple swordfighting and the fighting on the wheel and all the other points that The Observer says are old hat and I say are just a tribute to Flynn and Rathbone. I didn't entirely love that the film doesn't stand up on its own - I didn't know it was the first of a two parter - but they've undeniably got my money for the third part.
The one plot gap that really stood out to me while I was watching was the notion that the Kraken (very scary the first time; got a touch repetitive but still pretty gripping when it was Sparrow's life on the line) was aiming for Jack not the Pearl. So why did it go for the Pearl when Jack was racing off in the jolly boat? I thought that was going to turn out to be the twist...that Jack, far from being cowardly, was trying to draw the Kraken away, like Norrington and the jar of dirt. But he wasn't. And why did the Kraken home in on his hat to begin with? That made little in the way of sense. I also feel that Jack's looking at the compass when going down with the Pearl and seeing it twirling because he was precisely where he wanted to be would've been great. He needed a bit of agency at that moment.
I loved Bill Nighy and his organ. Fantastic special effects. Special effects don't do a lot for me, but these were like a What-A-Mess book - all sorts of random sealife playing out quiet dramas of their own on the main characters' faces. But Bill Nighy. I've loved him for some considerable time, though mostly what he does is plays variations on the theme of Bill Night. Bill Nighy suddenly looking entirely like Bill Nighy, even without a nice suit ('It's a triumph of special effects that this cephalopod creation is both unnervingly freakish, yet unmistakably Bill Nighy' - Guardian, Steve Rose), were some of my favourite moments in the film.
I kind of need to see the third film now. I do love that one of the themes of the next film is to get the Pearl back, as well as Jack...what the Pearl represents is still kind of crucial. Strange that it isn't even vaguely scary now, in the wake of the Dutchman. And neither is Barbossa. It was like welcoming a kindly long-lost uncle. I have a very short memory. Being unspoiled for Barbossa was fantastic. That was another favourite bit...I laughed hysterically with joy. He's such a great presence and it was lovely to see him get a bite of his apple.
That's about it. Favourite line: 'I feel sullied and unusual'. And 'An undead monkey.' And that one about Norrington wanting to take everyone in the bar in Tortuga.
I love Norrington. Yes. That's the main thing.
EDIT: Oh, and the music! It has the same theme music! Relief.
Um. I'm going to start with the horrible stuff, then I'm going to go on and squee about the rest of the film in a pretty appalling way that's going to make me want to stamp on my own toes, but I would quite like to end the review on a high note and forget the existence of the lowest. This film, in parts, is racist. There are several scenes to take issue with - the excising of the Indian pirate (who I was initially rather pleased to see) and the stereotypical representation of Tia and her community are two that have been commented on - on top of a pervading sense of imbalance (not helped in the least by the surprising lack of Ana-Maria), but the most obvious is the early digression that introduces us to a tribe of cannibals.
Five minutes' Googling makes it clear to a historical know-nothing such as myself that whatever excuses the producers feel they can draw on - if they believe themselves untouchable because they didn't name the tribe, or because it's a work of fiction, or because the tone is so outrageous you can't take any of it to heart - they are perpetuating a literary trope and historical myth (that Caribs were cannibals) that was used to subjugate people: to render them less than human and make their conquerors feel justified in enslaving them. Very few characters in the film are presented in anything approaching a good light, but this is a case of applying a known taboo regarded as the essence of uncivilised behaviour to the film's largest portrayal of an entire race. In spite of the protests of the Dominican citizens, Disney carried on regardless claiming that the scenes were integral to the plot. Well, that was a lie. I'm guessing they just didn't want to lose their jokes. There were some funny moments - I did enjoy the swinging spherical cages, and if you decontextualise it, a man in fear of being eaten inadvertantly turning himself into a giant kebab is a great sight gag. But this could've been excised. Integral to the plot is not always an excuse, even if it's true.
To lazily lift a comment I made to
slemslempike word for word, I would like to know precisely what the producers thought they were doing repeating patently offensive tropes, even in a pantomime-esque setting, without including a smidgeon of criticism - even if they'd managed to square it with their own consciences, and I suppose they must've done seeing as they went ahead with it, they must've realised how it was going to be received. You can sort of see the thought processes going on...let's explain the funny line from the first film, 'And then they made me their chief' (so much funnier prior to any sort of explanation whatsoever, but still)...and a 180 degree turnaround from being considered a god is being eaten by those who worship you, so let's go with that. And then you'd think common sense at least might've kicked in. The only way Tim Burton in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory could render the whole notion of the Oompa Loompas something close to inoffensive is to have them one foot tall and played by a single actor, putting them so far into the fantasy bracket that the audience begins to feel it's a stretch to draw a concrete analogy. Drawing on known and much-reviled stereotypes really doesn't fit into that remit. So basically I wish that stuff hadn't happened and I hope it doesn't again.
...
From the reviews I've read - the fannish ones - there are a lot of concerns about certain folks' wandering out of character or losing direction entirely (which is a biggish theme in Pirates 2). I'm nodding quite severely at that observation, especially in regards to Jack. Having said that, on thinking over it again (and again), possible explanations for errant behaviour do come to light. I should've noted where this comment came from (reminder to self to do that), but it's criticising the moment when Elizabeth holds the compass and the needle points to Jack Sparrow, indicating that's he what she most wants:
'Using her kiss to chain him to the mast, yes. Actually wanting him? No. And I thought they pushed it too hard. I feel as though the writers have confused Jack Sparrow with Johnny Depp. Where as Johnny Depp is actually God's Gift, Jack Sparrow simply thinks he is.'
My answer to that would be that, as with the Pearl, it's not just Sparrow she wants but what he represents, or what she feels he represents. What certain physical objects of desire represent is possibly more significant than what they are in this film. Jack's wanting the Pearl is symptomatic of his desire to be free. So Elizabeth's wanting Jack is also about that one night she spent being allowed to be drunk and reckless because she was in his company. Ultimately, being like him enabled her to sacrifice him to save her own life and those of the crew...so during those dangerous moments, perhaps she genuinely did want to lose her conscience and feel free to act in whatever way served her best. I'm guessing she doesn't want anything of the sort now. She seemed pretty much devastated by the end. Anway, I thought Elizabeth, on the whole, was great (throwing rocks at the silly boys and just being generally very clever and resourceful), if unrealistically good with a sword, but that's the sort of lack or realism that's never really bothered me in this series. Character flaws are worse.
Jack is more problematic, and I was a little unsettled by his astonishing lack of focus at the beginning. This was always a danger for a character so obviously savvy and superficially absurd, but Jack has become a bit clownish. He's the one who suffers most from the sequel's 'playing the old hits' syndrome. He was so fresh and new and uncopyable in the first film...now he seems to be going through his old gags (which very rarely worked the second time around: the first mention of rum met the stoniest silence I've ever encountered) to get the applause, which is frankly pretty sad. His floundering made an amount of sense when he was forced to flee the seas and found himself all at land, but before the threat was made concrete, I don't know. It was totally at odds with the confident end of Pirates 1, where he knows precisely what he wants and where he's going. The horizon. I suppose you can argue that he got fed up with being unable to find it. Oh hang on. He knew the 13 years was coming up and he knew that the sea was about to become entirely unsafe for him. Now, that would've flummoxed him. Land will protect him. He clings to a jar of land, of all things. So I'm increasingly reassured that staring hard at the flaws does seem to throw up a few possibilities. Perhaps I can write unsettling weirdness off as depth then. Good. But I do miss his ever-present enterprise and flourish, that
ironicdutchess pointed out was sorely lacking. I want him to have ideas again.I don't want to talk about Will.
I adore that Norrington's falling apart is canon. Oh god, Norrington. I love him painfully much and his actually quite successfully delayed entrance (the lack of him was growing annoying but it really made the moment) was just stunning. His voice! His angry carefree swagger. The fact that he really does want to be Jack Sparrow, or have Jack Sparrow or some such thing. I adore that they made my fic canonically sound (more or less - though I wish I'd known about the compass). I hope he gets the shininess and the wig back for the third film, but I think degeneration makes a great choice for his character development.
The plot was undeniably everywhere. Quest after quest and few of them with a real resolution...gathering 99 souls in three days to trade for Sparrow's life (or Will's servitude - maybe I didn't follow it as closely as I thought) went nowhere because Will simply managed to escape. But that actually didn't bother me...I quite like that some of the ideas just failed or became redundant as other plot points turned up. It lacked easy or happy endings. Maybe it was just confusion and a lack of focus on the part of the writing team, but I'm going to think of it as a weird touch of realism. Anyway, it really helped the pacing.
It didn't bother me particularly that we had no explanation as to why Davy Jones can remove his heart and carry on all the same, or what precisely the heart enables the holder to do (turn away the Kraken? Is that what 'controlling the seas' means? Or do you have to destroy the heart?). Or what the jar of dirt was for and why it didn't really come into play. That sort of thing bothers me hugely in Dr Who, but that doesn't have so many pirates. Pirates stop me from caring. Like the crew's failing to care enough for the peripheral characters who died (often due to Jack's selfishness) when they're prepared to go to the end of the earth of Jack. Well...you know...he is played by Johnny Depp. I also kind of loved the crazy triple swordfighting and the fighting on the wheel and all the other points that The Observer says are old hat and I say are just a tribute to Flynn and Rathbone. I didn't entirely love that the film doesn't stand up on its own - I didn't know it was the first of a two parter - but they've undeniably got my money for the third part.
The one plot gap that really stood out to me while I was watching was the notion that the Kraken (very scary the first time; got a touch repetitive but still pretty gripping when it was Sparrow's life on the line) was aiming for Jack not the Pearl. So why did it go for the Pearl when Jack was racing off in the jolly boat? I thought that was going to turn out to be the twist...that Jack, far from being cowardly, was trying to draw the Kraken away, like Norrington and the jar of dirt. But he wasn't. And why did the Kraken home in on his hat to begin with? That made little in the way of sense. I also feel that Jack's looking at the compass when going down with the Pearl and seeing it twirling because he was precisely where he wanted to be would've been great. He needed a bit of agency at that moment.
I loved Bill Nighy and his organ. Fantastic special effects. Special effects don't do a lot for me, but these were like a What-A-Mess book - all sorts of random sealife playing out quiet dramas of their own on the main characters' faces. But Bill Nighy. I've loved him for some considerable time, though mostly what he does is plays variations on the theme of Bill Night. Bill Nighy suddenly looking entirely like Bill Nighy, even without a nice suit ('It's a triumph of special effects that this cephalopod creation is both unnervingly freakish, yet unmistakably Bill Nighy' - Guardian, Steve Rose), were some of my favourite moments in the film.
I kind of need to see the third film now. I do love that one of the themes of the next film is to get the Pearl back, as well as Jack...what the Pearl represents is still kind of crucial. Strange that it isn't even vaguely scary now, in the wake of the Dutchman. And neither is Barbossa. It was like welcoming a kindly long-lost uncle. I have a very short memory. Being unspoiled for Barbossa was fantastic. That was another favourite bit...I laughed hysterically with joy. He's such a great presence and it was lovely to see him get a bite of his apple.
That's about it. Favourite line: 'I feel sullied and unusual'. And 'An undead monkey.' And that one about Norrington wanting to take everyone in the bar in Tortuga.
I love Norrington. Yes. That's the main thing.
EDIT: Oh, and the music! It has the same theme music! Relief.