POTC II!!!

[animatornickb]

Ok so it's out!!!! Let the reviews begin!!! Unfortunatly I won't be seeing it till SUnday for my birthday with my family. GRRR Now it's even more torture knowing I can see it... BUt I have to wait. AHHHH!!!!!!

[moro]

I just saw it tonight w/ the folks. The plot was kinda badly constructed, not too coherent (like the first one, if you ask me.) On the other hand, there was enough cool stuff to make it very worthwhile. The creature effects were excellent. All kinds of horrifying gooey sea creatures. (I'm a sucker for people with pulsating anemones in their eye sockets.) The production design was really atmospheric and grotty. Johnny Depp was also atmospheric and grotty.^^ I think I liked it a little better than the first one, if only because it has more monsters.

[Heidi]

[Jen]

Heidi that is the saddest thing I've ever seen!!!!!

Yeah I really didn't like this movie..... a lot. After Superman and this.... it was too much disappointment. I didn't even have the energy to rage to my family last night. I just kept starting to and then I would just sigh and say nevermind. It's a bummer. I big huge blockbuster sized bummer.

[Juice]

Ok, I must say something. I must say what I think even if it's wrong and I upset people. I just saw this film again tonight with my mom and dad (second time i've seen it) And I have to say...it makes me angry, I don't exactly know why, that you guys didn't like it SO much. It's like I feel that if it didn't meet your expectations you HATE it. Sure it was a much different scenario for Jack this time around and he seemed to be much "different" but honestly I liked him SO much more this time around. In the first movie he's a one dimensional, suave, charming ladies man. I WANT his past to catch up with him and that's EXACTLY what this film did....perfectly. I know, hate me now, hate me with everything you have. I'm sorry, but I REALLY like this film. I care for the characters, all of them. I get everyone's motivation. In a weird way I want them all to succeed.

I didn't get, until the second viewing the whole, "the compass points towards what you REALLY want." And seeing that clearly now makes the film even BETTER....for me. Seeing Jack realize he wants elizabeth. Seeing that elizabeth is thinking of Jack, seeing those two opposite sides of the coin realize that they are missing what the other has. I totally didn't get the whole "Elizabeth or Island where the chest is" moment in the boat with Jack. and I didn't get that it was pointing at jack when elizabeth was holding it on the island. Anyway, I could go on awhile about how much I like Bootstraps and Wills scenes, how I root for Norrington, how I can't wait to see how the famous Famous Jack Sparrow gets out of this one. I'm SO excited for the third. Alright. I'm done for now, and I'm expecting a heated response from a few of you. Hope I didn't offend anyone too badly, it was never my intention. I'm just trying to stick up for a film I REALLY liked.

[moro]

Mm, yeah...I liked the first one, but I didn't have this great emotional attachment to it. (So maybe that helped.^__^)

[Jen]

Justin, its totally fine if you like this film. No one is going to hate you for that! I mean I can't speak for everyone but I don't anyways... not at all!! That's cool this film works for you, but wow did it not work for me! And it is totally not because I had too high of expectations. I've been doubting this thing since I heard about its existence. The morning of the showing I read all the reviews and I really lowered my expectations so that maybe I could still enjoy it, but I didn't. For me the film is overly complicated and the character motivation is really weak and sloppy. There's no clear notion of what this movie is about. If this film is about a love triangle, then the whole movie should have supported that theme. I think the idea of a compass that points to what you most want is really fascinating, but like everything in this movie there's hardly anytime spent on the idea. Even you have to admit the over-complicated nature of this film, if you didn't notice such a pivitol plot point until your second viewing. !

I tried so hard to like this film, but I just gave up like a third of the way in. I just didn't care anymore... about anything! Movies ask you questions. What is Jack searching for? How will Jack escape Davy Jones? What's in the Dead Man's Chest? Will lizzie be saved from death? etc. That's what keeps you watching the movie. But in this movie all my questions got answered right away. ALL of them. There was no reason to watch the movie anymore. The love triangle was so vague and lost in the action I didn't really take it seriously until the very end of the movie. And by then the characters were so unlikeable I really didn't care what happened to them!

So yeah. Those are a few of my reasons for not liking it. *shrugs* But there is certainly no ill will towards people who do like it. Confusion, but no ill will.

[margoator]

WARNING: SEVERE SPOILERS!!!
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Hey Everyone!!! Happy Summer!!
I just wanted to pop in and comment on the ONE good live action film of the summer! I think that for what live action has to offer the world... this film was awesome. I think a lot of you guys have become overcritical in terms of STORY, and story only. What about all the other elements that this film had to offer?? (I'll talk about the story in a bit.) This film had thorough technology and effects that SUPPORT and don't overshadow the story and the characters or the sheer beauty of the reality of the environment (if that makes any sense!) The shots were always EXTREMELY well planned out, well-edited, and downright FUN! Sleight and catchy and clever, just like Jack Sparrow himself. I was totally along for the ride and laughing the whole way through. I do agree that maybe things were a bit crazy with the multiple bad guys and subplots, but they all worked in a circular fashion with payoffs... like little hidden treasures (!) just kidding... but anyway, the bad guy in his office in front of the map says that Jack will have to Evolve and change, as the world changes and gets bigger. This little story point is the whole thing that drives all of these characters to impact Jack and Will and Elizabeth... (not to mention a *small* comment on our own lives getting more complicated as the world gets smaller and suburbia taking over and the possibility of adventures like these existing only in our imaginations... but back to the film...) The "I am your father" sequel... Personally, I always like Back to the Future 2 the best...I actually thought the first Pirates got boring at times, but this one didn't. And anyway... I wasn't all that bothered by the end... that last shot we see of Jack and the Kraken was like a classic painting of a pirate staring down a wave...man vs. nature... and we know that Jack will get out of it... the end of the film is just a new beginning, a new journey... that's the fun of it all, anyway.

P.S. Nick liked it, too. :-)

[Emma]

Went and saw it on Saturday. I guess I'm kind of in the middle about it - it was okay, but even the first one suffered from overcomplicated running-around-looking-for-stuff, and this just totally took it to a new level. It was best when they were running around being generally goofy, because it was too complicated to really make any kind of sense in the serious parts...

I liked Davy Jones, but one of my coworkers made this point and I agree with it: The first pirate movie had ghost pirates as the bad guys, which is all established in folklore and stuff. But he said he wasn't going to go see this movie because the bad guys looked like aliens, and he liked Pirates, not Aliens. The designs on the Flying Dutchman pirates were really confusing; every once in a while I'd catch a cool bit like "oh, his belt buckle is a starfish," or something, but mostly they were moving too fast for you to see anything but a big confusing mess.
Like I know they were going for all realistic and stuff, but I got the feeling that the guys at ILM were just heaping layer after layer of designs onto each character, until you can't even tell where the goddamn HEAD is.

Anyone notice how ALL the black pirates were in the other cage, became evil, and died in the first fifteen minutes? Way to go, Disney... also the cannibals were like the most ethnically diverse population possible without using any white people.

I also liked how it took them like a half hour to sail ANYWHERE.

So I think it was a fun movie. I still think Superman was better, though... there were just too many threads of the plot going on.

[CaptainObvious]

okay, i will rent it then... to fast forward through all the crap and just watch the animation in frames.