Oh, and I forgot to mention that I saw “Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest” over the weekend, also.
Was the first one as stuffed full and confusing as this one is? There’s so much going on and it seems so disjointed. But the big set-pieces are very good – I particularly liked the rolling fight on top of the water wheel. And they did a great job on making Bill Nighy look as if he’s just naturally got an octopus head. It didn’t ever look like a special effect to me.
And I think I’d pay money to watch Johnny Depp read a software licensing agreement.
Nitpick time: why is it in pulp movies like this that the monster can take just a few seconds to eat inconsequential characters, but it takes them minutes and minutes longer to eat major characters? The difference has always seemed odd to me. Any AD&D players out there, though, will recognize that the process of eating a higher-level character means reducing their hit points down to zero first… OK, I just geeked out. I’m not saying it’s right I’m just saying that’s the rationalization.
Anyway, “Pirates” is a good summer action movie and just as fun as the original.