Monday, July 10, 2006

...because I've recently become enamored with the sound of my own voice.

Keira Knightley and Johnny Depp[Danger]
Danger here, reporting from our nation's capital (or thereabouts) on pretty much nothing. Changes in my life are limited to a change in job (though not workplace) and the boring reports that involves. So what to say? In a word...yarr.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is loaded with awesome. Though I realize it is exasperating to many to see an adjective used as a noun, it is appropriate to use it when writing about this movie. It was overflowing with awesome. It shot out of the screen every fifteen seconds or so, bathing the audience in it. Leaving the theatre, it was hard to tell whether your feet stuck to the floor due to dried soda or due to concentrated, dried up awesome trying to keep you there for another showing.

"How was it so awesome?", you might ask yourself if you've bothered reading this far. There are pirates, to be sure, which is a good thing right there. In the great pirate-ninja debate, which grew old and tired about forever ago, I've always been a pirate fan. I even cheer on the Buccaneers ifI channel surf past them. That isn't enough, though. To bring its awesome factor to heights once thought unattainable by people other than Sherman, Roosevelt (I'll let you pick whichever of the two you like more) and Batman, it had to pull out some big guns. It had ghosts, it had diabolical contracts, it had black magic women, it had Orlando Bloom achieving a respectable (?!) performance and it had sea monsters. Not enough for you yet? Then you're likely a snobby liberal (like myself) that can only garner enjoyment from foreign films (not quite like myself). This, however, is where Pirates scores awesome points that puts it within the enjoyment of effete elites.

The film has a plotline (ok, it has about a dozen plotlines, but I'm referring to this one) that is a thinkly veiled attack upon corporate influence on the world. The East India Trading company makes a showing in the film, representing the forces of tyrannical imperialism trying to rob the world of its magic and freedom in order to make money. At least, I read it that way. However you look at it, though, there is definitely some sort of social commentary going on there and to have that come from a Disney ride inspired movie produced by Jerry Bruckheimer is surprising, refreshing, and earns the movie enough awesome points to push it above Star Wars, the Lord of the Rings, and Six String Samurai. So, avast, ye mateys, and set sail for Port Awesome on the good ship Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, yarr!

I can't believe I actually wrote that preceding sentence.

web site hit counter