Zombos Says: Excellent
Yo ho yo ho, it’s the pirates life for me! Crack open the rum, and butter me bum, this sure is a fine film. Before I drag my dead man’s hairy chest to the office after spending the night watching me boy Jack Sparrow shiver his timbers, I want to put a few comments to digital paper for you landlubbers.
This summer movie sizzles! It has everything a good swashbuckling movie should have. It’s a treasure chest full of pulse-pounding adventure and more; and more includes beautiful bonnie lasses, handsome men, rigorous swordplay, dastardly scoundrels, flogging, a scintillating score, and thar be monsters aplenty. Aye, mateys, monsters! From the legendary Kraken to old squidhead himself, Davy Jones, and his barnacle and mollusk-encrusted crew of the damned, they will take your breadth away through the clever and seamless use of CGI, makeup, and damn fine acting.
And sloshing his way through it all, from ship to island, is rum-soaked Jack Sparrow—oh, sorry, Captain Jack Sparrow. Just as he escapes from a nasty prison that features eye-plucking crows and very uncomfortable accommodations (wonder if they will add that to the Disney ride?), Bootstrap Bill comes calling with an untimely message from Davy Jones. Seems Jack made a bargain with the sea-devil many years ago, and his time’s run through. But always-conniving Jack brokers an interim deal, involving 99 souls, or so it would seem, to take his place aboard the Flying Dutchman, and he soon embroils Will Turner and Elizabeth in his little gambit with his impending eternal date with destiny. But Jack, Will and Elizabeth have their own agendas, and each go their separate ways until their paths cross a wee bit amidships, right about when we find them in Tortuga.
Gore Verbinski starts with a portentous opening scene of unused teacups filling up to overflowing with a torrent of rain water, and from there the story spins deliriously from stem to stern—like a drunken pirate—from ship to ship, island to island, and all of it leading our hapless heroes and heroines always, inexorably, back to the Flying Dutchman.
But before Davy Jones will have his due, Jack and Will, along with the Black Pearl’s motley crew, must escape the clutches of a bunch of very hungry natives. In a volley of hilarious scenes reminiscent of a Bugs Bunny cartoon, Jack fends off the natives with fruit while trussed up like a suckling pig, and his crew rolls—literally—through the jungle in giant cages to escape their captors. And once they are free, it’s time for the Jack to double-cross Will, and for them to meet the damned ship on a stormy night.
The Flying Dutchman and its crew are bleak and imaginatively hideous. Being damned at sea for a hundred years sure takes its toll. As the crew ages in their begrudging servitude to Davy Jones, they change. But not in a good way. They become one with the sea, and the sea and its denizens become one with them. Davy Jones himself sports a new doo of writhing tentacles and a lobster claw in place of one hand, and his crew runs the wondrous but icky gamut of sea life, from fish to crustacean, and any semblance to the humans they once were is purely coincidental.
Which is unfortunate for them; especially the ones pulling deck duty the longest. They eventually wind up as part of the deck itself. In one heart-stopping scene, one of these crewmen pops out from the hull, leaving some important bits of himself still attached, to convey a cryptic message to Jack. The foley team earned their paychecks with these scenes, as they pulled out all the stops with their squishing, shell-clicking sounds that echo from the man-fish crew and Davy’s squiddy, breathing sack of a head. I dare you to eat another clam, oyster, or mussel and not think about this film. Go ahead. I double dare you!
And when the Kraken attacks, all breathing stops. Both in the movie and in the audience. First comes the thud as it bumps the hull of the ship, then the tentacles rise slowly up out of the ocean surrounding it. And then the cracking and crunching starts, like a walnut being slowly crushed, and men go up and away as they are picked like ripe fruit off the vine.
Oh, and yes, there is Davy Jones’ chest, which contains a most important artifact. The island interlude to retrieve the chest and escape Davy Jones’ crew is a highlight in the film. Everyone squares off, and friends soon become enemies as desperation and opportunity set in.
For those not in the know, this is the second film in a trilogy, so the denouement, with Jack caught between a rock and a hard place, will leave you breathlessly waiting for the third film. And you might want to stay a bit after the credits roll: a little ditty of a funny scene back on the island of hungry cannibals is worth a look.
So set your sails for the nearest theater port and hoist a few—bags of hot-buttered popcorn that is. This is the summer movie to see. Or be damned me hearty!