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jemck at 10:09am on 04/06/2007
jemck at 10:09am on 04/06/2007Phew. What a ride. What a very long and collectively self-indulgent film for the actors, writers and director. But mostly in a good way. Or not in a bad way at least. Especially not if you channel your inner twelve year old.
One to grab the popcorn for - but I don't recommend entirely disengaging the brain. Not if you want to keep track of the double-crossing which ends up crossed, criss-crossed and redoubled. Fortunately I found the extended sfx/fight scenes were frequent and long enough to allow me time to think, um, so who's on which ship now, chasing whom? And um, are we going to get an answer to that? No, that's obviously a loose plot thread left from some cut in the rewrites. No matter. Ah, right, that's it, off we go!
It reminded me irresistably of one of those marathon end-of-campaign RPG sessions, when the GM can just throw everything into the mix - monsters, magic and entirely unexpected and quite possibly spurious connections between all the stuff that's gone before, planned and random. And no one minds because it's all happening so fast and so furious and everyone's buying into it on the same level. Even the dice join in, landing natural 20s in the middle of the table for everyone to see.
The line that sticks with me is one minor character asking another, of Jack Sparrow, 'do you think he plans it all out in advance or just makes it up as he goes along?'
Mostly the film did have an air of being made up as they went along. But with such brio!
A couple of big ticks in the plus column. Keith Richards - an appearance properly integrated into the story and the mythos and played so well that it had real impact on my sons, for whom the Rolling Stones are merely a largely unknown dad-rock-band with some skinny old bloke for a lead singer.
And the final story-telling choices. Taking the hard choices. Twisting the knife makes for a much better conclusion overall.
Roll on the rest of the summer blockbusters - the buzz around the new Fantastic Four is increasingly positive, and we're all looking forward to the new Harry Potter. Very good trailer.
Die Hard 4.0? Should Steve and I sort a boy-minder and go and see that, just for old times sake? Maybe...
One to grab the popcorn for - but I don't recommend entirely disengaging the brain. Not if you want to keep track of the double-crossing which ends up crossed, criss-crossed and redoubled. Fortunately I found the extended sfx/fight scenes were frequent and long enough to allow me time to think, um, so who's on which ship now, chasing whom? And um, are we going to get an answer to that? No, that's obviously a loose plot thread left from some cut in the rewrites. No matter. Ah, right, that's it, off we go!
It reminded me irresistably of one of those marathon end-of-campaign RPG sessions, when the GM can just throw everything into the mix - monsters, magic and entirely unexpected and quite possibly spurious connections between all the stuff that's gone before, planned and random. And no one minds because it's all happening so fast and so furious and everyone's buying into it on the same level. Even the dice join in, landing natural 20s in the middle of the table for everyone to see.
The line that sticks with me is one minor character asking another, of Jack Sparrow, 'do you think he plans it all out in advance or just makes it up as he goes along?'
Mostly the film did have an air of being made up as they went along. But with such brio!
A couple of big ticks in the plus column. Keith Richards - an appearance properly integrated into the story and the mythos and played so well that it had real impact on my sons, for whom the Rolling Stones are merely a largely unknown dad-rock-band with some skinny old bloke for a lead singer.
And the final story-telling choices. Taking the hard choices. Twisting the knife makes for a much better conclusion overall.
Roll on the rest of the summer blockbusters - the buzz around the new Fantastic Four is increasingly positive, and we're all looking forward to the new Harry Potter. Very good trailer.
Die Hard 4.0? Should Steve and I sort a boy-minder and go and see that, just for old times sake? Maybe...
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