Rick's World

Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0383574/

My friend Dave wrote in with his thoughts on the new Pirates movie. I thought I'd give me point of view.

While I agree with Dave that Pirates was an entertaining movie, I have to say that I just didn't think this movie was as good as the first one. Yes it had great special effects, but the movie felt very 'busy' to me. There was way too much going on in the movie. It constantly jumped from one location to another. There were some lengthy scenes that seemed to be thrown into the movie purely for cheap laughs (such as the water wheel scene). I thought a lot of the scenes in this movie were more padding than anything else. Also, the 'sea pirates' seemed way too detailed, if that makes any sense. While it was cool to see all the different pirates and how their appearance was related to the sea (octopii, starfish, blowfish, barnacles, sharks etc.), I just thought their apperance was a bit too detailed. It almost felt overdone to me. I really liked the skeleton pirates better. It was a much simpler look and to me anyway, they felt a lot more 'scary' than the sea pirates.

I also found some parts of it confusing. What's with the immortal monkey? How'd he end up on the Black Pearl? As I recall he was one of the 'skeleton pirates' in the first movie. Weren't they all turned human at the end? How'd he stay immortal? Also, it seemed that several characters who (seemingly) died in the first movie have suddenly reappeared in this movie, very much alive. I'm sure all this will be explained in the final movie that comes out next year, but for now it's all a bit confusing. Maybe I need to go back and watch the first movie again, to catch some of the things I may have forgot.

Dave (and my brother) both liked this movie better than Superman Returns. I can't say that I agree. I really liked Superman Returns better (but then again, I am a comic book nut). Oh well, to each his own. :)