MUTANTS OF THE CARIBBEAN!
Jun. 14th, 2011 10:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogWe spent the weekend watching the fourth installments of lucrative movie franchises that wore out their welcome at least one movie ago. What are the odds?
X-Men: First Class
The buzz from comics fans was that this was going to suck serious ass, whether because of the director, the casting, the choice of student characters, continuity issues with the Marvel Universe or whatever. Personally, I went in with low expectations because the third film wasn’t that great, and the Wolverine origins film was even worse.
So the good news is that XM:FC doesn’t suck. On the other hand, it’s also flawed (the movie is set in 1962, but fashion-wise it looks closer to 1967/Austin Powers at times) and, like most prequels, suffers from the fact that we all know where this is going. Also, while I appreciate the attempt to reveal the secret history of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Sebastian Shaw’s evil plan for mutant domination probably could have used more fleshing out onscreen, because as presented, it’s a head-scratcher.
Apart from that, the overall storyline of the beginning of the X-Men is all right, and makes good use of the underlying X-Men theme of prejudice and acceptance (which has always been the X-Men trump card in the superhero genre for me).
But ultimately I didn’t get much out of it. It’s an entertaining 130+ minutes, but it says a lot that the main highlights for me were Emma Frost’s lingerie collection and Kevin Bacon as Shaw. In that order. (Though admittedly that says more about me than the film, but it’s not like I get paid to write these reviews.)
Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
In which Captain Jack Sparrow is racing Hector Barbosa (now a privateer employed by the Crown) to find the Fountain Of Youth before the Spanish do, only to be pressganged into the service of Blackbeard, who knows voodoo, and his daughter (and Jack’s former lover) Angelica. And there’s killer mermaids in it.
Which sounds good on paper (so to speak), but on film the whole thing seems uninspired. Johnny Depp and Geoffery Rush are as game as ever, but Ian McShane’s Blackbeard isn’t the camp fun of Barbosa or the menacing weirdness of Davy Jones. In fact, the main problem with PotC:OST is that it’s not weird enough. The third film, flawed and overlong as it was, had Davy Jones’ Locker as a kind of surreal pirate purgatory, the goddess Calypso and pirate ships dueling in a maelstrom. This one has flesh-eating mermaids and a modicum of voodoo (and yes, the Fountain of Youth), but that’s about it.
I can’t say I’m disappointed, since I didn’t expect much (and it’s only proper to mention that PotC overall has been much better than any film series based on a Disney park ride has a right to be). But it’s a shame to see one of the best movie characters ever created (Sparrow) squandered in an unnecessary sequel.
Avast,
This is dF
X-Men: First Class
The buzz from comics fans was that this was going to suck serious ass, whether because of the director, the casting, the choice of student characters, continuity issues with the Marvel Universe or whatever. Personally, I went in with low expectations because the third film wasn’t that great, and the Wolverine origins film was even worse.
So the good news is that XM:FC doesn’t suck. On the other hand, it’s also flawed (the movie is set in 1962, but fashion-wise it looks closer to 1967/Austin Powers at times) and, like most prequels, suffers from the fact that we all know where this is going. Also, while I appreciate the attempt to reveal the secret history of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Sebastian Shaw’s evil plan for mutant domination probably could have used more fleshing out onscreen, because as presented, it’s a head-scratcher.
Apart from that, the overall storyline of the beginning of the X-Men is all right, and makes good use of the underlying X-Men theme of prejudice and acceptance (which has always been the X-Men trump card in the superhero genre for me).
But ultimately I didn’t get much out of it. It’s an entertaining 130+ minutes, but it says a lot that the main highlights for me were Emma Frost’s lingerie collection and Kevin Bacon as Shaw. In that order. (Though admittedly that says more about me than the film, but it’s not like I get paid to write these reviews.)
Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
In which Captain Jack Sparrow is racing Hector Barbosa (now a privateer employed by the Crown) to find the Fountain Of Youth before the Spanish do, only to be pressganged into the service of Blackbeard, who knows voodoo, and his daughter (and Jack’s former lover) Angelica. And there’s killer mermaids in it.
Which sounds good on paper (so to speak), but on film the whole thing seems uninspired. Johnny Depp and Geoffery Rush are as game as ever, but Ian McShane’s Blackbeard isn’t the camp fun of Barbosa or the menacing weirdness of Davy Jones. In fact, the main problem with PotC:OST is that it’s not weird enough. The third film, flawed and overlong as it was, had Davy Jones’ Locker as a kind of surreal pirate purgatory, the goddess Calypso and pirate ships dueling in a maelstrom. This one has flesh-eating mermaids and a modicum of voodoo (and yes, the Fountain of Youth), but that’s about it.
I can’t say I’m disappointed, since I didn’t expect much (and it’s only proper to mention that PotC overall has been much better than any film series based on a Disney park ride has a right to be). But it’s a shame to see one of the best movie characters ever created (Sparrow) squandered in an unnecessary sequel.
Avast,
This is dF
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no subject
on 2011-06-14 11:44 pm (UTC)The new Pirates film was an adaptation of a novel that's meant to be pretty good. Shoehorning the PoC characters and mythology into that plot created a bit of a mess, though. I was looking forward to seeing Ian McShane in action, but he didn't get much to work with. I reckon there's a lot more Blackbeard on the cutting room floor.
Thankfully this film was shorter than the previous one--I think it was considerably cheaper to make, too.