May 20, 2011

Against "Pirates"

The Daily Beast's Chris Lee on a certain new movie:

How else but for a kind of willful amnesia and collective embrace of cinematic dreck do you explain the popularity of the third chapter, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, a blunderbuss of untied plot threads in nearly three hours of critically drubbed suckitude that still clocked $963 million in global ticket receipts?... First comes the set-up: Characters spout gibberish dialogue in a quasi-English/half-drunk pirate accent that no one (save, perhaps, four-peat screenwriting offenders Terry Rossio and Stuart Beattie) can understand. Then, with character exposition out of the way, a chase sequence inevitably follows—usually involving Sparrow swinging down from said mast on said rope—leading up to a multi-gagillion-dollar waterlogged set piece involving jousting skeletons or something. Gibberish, chase, set piece. Gibberish, chase, set piece. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Posted by Stephen Silver at May 20, 2011 03:05 AM
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