Second movie review
Jul. 10th, 2006 10:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
veronica_richMy sister and I went to see "Dead Man's Chest" again yesterday. I liked this viewing better, because I knew what was going to happen, and I could just sit back and watch technique and execution and such.
Jack, I believe, is nearly everyone's favorite character, and for good reason. He comes across sometimes as clownish upon first viewing, but on the second, he's more astute and simply FRIGHTENED of what's coming for him. I think he's probably being as noble as he can under the circumstances. Put simply, he's fucked and there's no real way out of it beyond never setting foot in the water again - and that's not something Jack can go without.
Will was my favorite character in this movie besides Jack. He almost edged him out in a couple of scenes, eve. And it's not because Will is overly heroic or handsome or noble - it's because he's grown and is more complex than in the first one. Despite everything he knows, everything the tricks he's learned and the shortcuts he could take, when it comes to real people who are in no position to help themselves, he's there to do it. (And, I must confess, I have more faith in Orlando's acting than seemingly many critics. I've always said a simple pretty face doesn't interest me, and it still doesn't.)
Elizabeth ... This one is harder to reconcile. I liked her better in the second viewing, and I think it's because I saw her for what she was. She's used to getting her way from Daddy and probably with Will, used to making demands and having them met, and one cannot simply do that with Jack Sparrow. As someone else pointed out, when she tries to play his own game against him, he flummoxes her by being ready to take advantage of what she's (not) offering. She's not yet old enough, either, to understand that one can desire another person without either (a) acting upon it or (b) feeling guilty about it. Nor does she understand the difference between desire for a person and desire for what that person REPRESENTS; I think what she wants is the freedom and the expanse Jack represents, not necessarily Jack himself (at least not for any length of time). I think the reason she chains him to the ship is twofold: She's wanting to avenge what Jack did to Will by sending him to Davy Jones; and she's trying to remove her own temptation.
Norrington is fabulous. I can't help it - I honestly thought his reaction in the first one was more out of character than here. It's not that he can't be a good man - he TRIED to be a good, upright man, and look where it got him, is his POV. He suffered a great loss, presumably, and is angry, indignant, and scared.
As for pairings - I can't help still seeing more chemistry between Jack and Will than between Jack and Elizabeth. There just aren't enough basic differences between J and E to make that pairing interesting or lasting, in my opinion - I need a little "opposite" in my preferred pairings.
EDIT: Who thinks there is the remotest chance that, like Star Wars, we'll find out that Jack is Luke- er, I mean, Will's, father? Or related in some other way? (Yeah, Will's blood was needed to break the curse, but would Jack's have done as well? We'll never know because of the way the blood was shed.)
Jack, I believe, is nearly everyone's favorite character, and for good reason. He comes across sometimes as clownish upon first viewing, but on the second, he's more astute and simply FRIGHTENED of what's coming for him. I think he's probably being as noble as he can under the circumstances. Put simply, he's fucked and there's no real way out of it beyond never setting foot in the water again - and that's not something Jack can go without.
Will was my favorite character in this movie besides Jack. He almost edged him out in a couple of scenes, eve. And it's not because Will is overly heroic or handsome or noble - it's because he's grown and is more complex than in the first one. Despite everything he knows, everything the tricks he's learned and the shortcuts he could take, when it comes to real people who are in no position to help themselves, he's there to do it. (And, I must confess, I have more faith in Orlando's acting than seemingly many critics. I've always said a simple pretty face doesn't interest me, and it still doesn't.)
Elizabeth ... This one is harder to reconcile. I liked her better in the second viewing, and I think it's because I saw her for what she was. She's used to getting her way from Daddy and probably with Will, used to making demands and having them met, and one cannot simply do that with Jack Sparrow. As someone else pointed out, when she tries to play his own game against him, he flummoxes her by being ready to take advantage of what she's (not) offering. She's not yet old enough, either, to understand that one can desire another person without either (a) acting upon it or (b) feeling guilty about it. Nor does she understand the difference between desire for a person and desire for what that person REPRESENTS; I think what she wants is the freedom and the expanse Jack represents, not necessarily Jack himself (at least not for any length of time). I think the reason she chains him to the ship is twofold: She's wanting to avenge what Jack did to Will by sending him to Davy Jones; and she's trying to remove her own temptation.
Norrington is fabulous. I can't help it - I honestly thought his reaction in the first one was more out of character than here. It's not that he can't be a good man - he TRIED to be a good, upright man, and look where it got him, is his POV. He suffered a great loss, presumably, and is angry, indignant, and scared.
As for pairings - I can't help still seeing more chemistry between Jack and Will than between Jack and Elizabeth. There just aren't enough basic differences between J and E to make that pairing interesting or lasting, in my opinion - I need a little "opposite" in my preferred pairings.
EDIT: Who thinks there is the remotest chance that, like Star Wars, we'll find out that Jack is Luke- er, I mean, Will's, father? Or related in some other way? (Yeah, Will's blood was needed to break the curse, but would Jack's have done as well? We'll never know because of the way the blood was shed.)
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-11 03:05 am (UTC)See! There's my problem with the second movie - the plot deviates too much from the chemistry. They're desperately trying to push Jack and Elizabeth together (to make the movie, oh, I don't know, more heterosexual perhaps???) and it does. not. work.
Why?
*makes eyes at icon*
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Date: 2006-07-11 04:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-12 12:26 am (UTC)1) So much of Jack's personality is about performance. He flounces about always trying to convince someone that he's the opposite of their expectations of him, no matter what those expectations may be. To the authorities, he pretends to be a baffoon. To Will, he pretends to be nonchalant. To Elizabeth, a lecher and a coward. He's always got something else going on beneath the surface. This is one of the reasons why he is perhaps the wiliest character to grace the screen in years. To him, to be pinned down as any one thing is to be boxed in, even by those he does actually care about and seeks to protect. He takes the notion of freedom to that extreme. Thus, I don't think we can take too much stock in some of the more frivolous exchanges in the film as representative of Jack's true feelings. Certainly they are a part of his personality, since no one can be that bumbling and swishy merely by design, but he rarely gives us a true glimpse of his heart.
2) For Jack to be sexually interested in Will at this point in the cannon is still IMO entirely plausible. Of course, Jack and Will share much less screen time, most of which is rather more life or death than in the first film (given what eventually does happen at that cliffhanger ending), which doesn't exactly lead to flirtatious banter. But for him to love Will more than fraternally and physically has always been a stretch within the bounds of the cannon we know. Indeed, both of your stories have them involved in all sorts of adventure before love, er, blooms. Also, Jack's terrified for his own life, for his own soul. That is far weightier than physical attraction. Lastly, he is still obsessed with Will's genitalia. That has to count for something.
3) I wanted to make a point about how Jack can't get the compass to go where he wants it to, thinking that maybe it could be construed as leading him to Will, but I think I'm going to have to pay more attention the next time I see it to be sure of my bearings. Anyway, point is that he can't get it to work any more than Elizabeth, which begs the question, where does his heart really want it to go?
Thanks for all the plot for thought, I love reading your musings!
-G. ;D
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Date: 2006-07-12 05:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-12 05:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-12 05:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-11 03:27 am (UTC)~
A lot of people have started comparing "Pirates" with "Star Wars," saying that (like the second act in a play) the middle chapter threw everything all to Hell, so there can be a spectacular cleanup in the third act (and I'm fine with that - so long as nothing resembling an Ewok makes an appearance in #3 :p).
~
Another thing I've heard, that I disagree with (and it sounds like you would disagree as well), is that this film will do nothing for Orlando's career. O_o I know that Depp is the big focus, but I don't think "Pirates" could exist any more successfully without Will (or Elizabeth, for that matter), than it could without Jack. I'm glad I'm not the only one that
stillsorta sees this as Will Turner's Story, with Jack Sparrow as catalyst.no subject
Date: 2006-07-11 04:03 am (UTC)Go back up and read my edit. Dear lord, I hope not!!
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Date: 2006-07-11 02:13 pm (UTC)I hadn't heard That one yet. It's not based on any spoilers from #3, is it? (I may have to start practicing my Incest Mindset... :p)
~~
I remember the writers saying something about it being Elizabeth's journey on one of the commentary tracks of PotC:CotBP, but, for that movie especially, it's such a forced opinion. Elizabeth doesn't change one iota - Will pretty much does a turnaround.
This one definitely gives Elizabeth some new characterization, but I think we're still seeing even greater changes in Will. She discovers just how piratey she can be, but Will keeps getting the rug pulled out from under him (with the introduction of his father plight and Elizabeth's betrayal). His character may well be very dark in #3. (But just how dark will he get? And Will he recover from it at all?)
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Date: 2006-07-11 09:44 pm (UTC)Yeah, I think Disney's already done that movie. Let me see if I can remember the name of it ...
"Mulan"
"The Little Mermaid"
"Aladdin"
"Peter Pan"
Then again, Will is pretty much Bambi. LOL
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Date: 2006-07-11 03:45 pm (UTC)Someone on another thread asked if they were trying to "heterosexualize" the movie. What's interesting to me is that one of my co-workers (a college-age guy) said his friends went to see the movie this weekend and came home talking about how "homo-erotic" the movie was. Go figure.:)
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Date: 2006-07-11 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-11 05:30 am (UTC)My immediate reaction is fierce denial, not necessarily because that would squick me terribly, but that the POTC films so far have made it so easy for me to accept all its apparent canon at face value--they gave us Will's father, and so far as I can see, it's him. Though I was rather struck by the way Curse of the Black Pearl set it up that Will looked so like his father, that Jack suspected the relation immediately, and.. your tentative theory does make me wonder if maybe- wait, but other people have remarked on the resemblance as well, so- shit, I can't even finish a sentence now, none of these thoughts makes sense T__T
Stellan≠Orlando. That's all I got.
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Date: 2006-07-11 05:37 am (UTC)"What if Jack and Will have the same father?"
"What if Jack is Will's mother's brother?"
"What if Jack is Bill's brother, and he fathered Will, NOT Bill?" (Would explain the physical similarities - I mean, damn, those are hard to ignore.)
I'd prefer to think they're not related. As
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Date: 2006-07-11 06:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-11 02:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-12 02:24 am (UTC).. except that Luke and Leia never made out, so at least it never got too horribly disturbing... -_-
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Date: 2006-07-13 07:34 pm (UTC)...I think I just squicked myself.
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Date: 2006-07-13 08:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-11 03:14 pm (UTC)I did actually read a script review of the third film. It didn't have much that was spoilery at all. I knew more about DMC from
What I did want to know is what you thought of MY conspiracy theory?
http://philosophercat.livejournal.com/494562.html
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Date: 2006-07-12 05:24 am (UTC)What I want to know is: How did they end up with the monkey? The island and its cursed (and uncursed) treasure sank into the sea, right? Did the Pearl go back, the island was gone, but the monkey climbed aboard with his single coin? And if so, why wouldn't this have freaked Jack (or anyone else) right out?
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Date: 2006-07-13 08:26 pm (UTC)Speaking of Jack taking the stuff on Tia's table, figure that ring he snagged is important? I've only seen it the once so far, but I remember them coming back to shots of the ring, particularly when Jack's wrestling off the manacle and he grabs for the ring/s that slip off (and slips it back on?) *is wondering if it's some sort of magic tracking device that'll lead them to Jack*
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Date: 2006-07-14 03:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-12 03:07 pm (UTC)Yes! I found myself really loving this aspect of him in this go 'round. Speaking of frightening, (of the black spot, actually), did anyone think, however wishfully, that the masturbation allusion was perhaps a Depp original? I just can't see Disney sitting around a conference table saying, "you know what this movie needs? More masturbation humor". Just my admittedly hopeful theory.
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Date: 2006-07-12 03:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-12 03:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-14 03:07 am (UTC)