Flickerings: INDEX OF MOVIE REVIEWS
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Johnny Depp and all of his pirate friends and foes return in the biggest spectacle on the open seas and on the big screen, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. Director Gore Verbinski’s (The Weather Man, The Ring) third journey gives us even more mind-blowing and seamless special effects. The result is a mostly overblown film enveloping a sputtering and confusing plot.
We first join those familiar pirates (familiar if you are one of the millions of moviegoers who have seen either of the previous two films), Barbossa (Jeffrey Rush), Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), Elizabeth Swan (Keira Knightly) and all their batty buccaneer buddies in Singapore (so much for pirates of the Caribbean). The pirates are there to recover — make that steal — a special treasure map from Asian pirate kingpin Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat). Map in hand, they set sail to find Jack Sparrow (Depp) who is banished to Davy Jones’ Locker, which is seemingly at, well … at world’s end. Everyone has a different angle: Will wants to save his father, Sparrow wants to kill Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) and Barbossa wants to summon the goddess Calypso. None of it makes much sense.
The challenge to enjoying the adventurous action is getting past wondering what the heck is going on. For action there is aplenty. Verbinski knows how to turn computerized wizardry into excellent sea-ship action and swordplay. Indeed, the great appeal of the Pirates trilogy lies at the point of where modern magic and traditional swashbucklery meet. This dynamic plays out in both movie action and story.
The Pirates movies have never been satisfied to stick to a Robert Louis Stevenson-style adventure. No, they bring us an element of almost sci-fi fantasy. Here, ships sail upside down; pirates are half man, half fish; ghosts are the norm; and hearts beat by themselves in boxes. Don’t try to make sense of it.
Perhaps most curious of all is a Captain Jack Sparrow who regularly slips into what seem peyote-induced hallucinations. (Did I mention not trying to make sense of it?) Verbinski deserves props for pushing the envelope of what mainstream audiences are ready to swallow in a summer blockbuster. Unfortunately, the hallucination scenes end up being not much more than fiddling around. Aaargh.
Fair adventure/comedy • PG-13 • 167 mins.
Two rival magicians let their bitter competition dominate their lives in the fascinatingly entertaining The Prestige. Writer-director Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, Insomnia) delivers a complex and mysterious tale that leaves us guessing until the very end.
Young and handsome Rupert (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred (Christian Bale) are apprentice magicians in rough and tumble, turn-of-the-century London. After an on-stage accident kills Rupert’s magician’s assistant wife (Piper Perabo), he blames Alfred and seeks his revenge. That revenge leads Alfred in turn to get back at Rupert. All the while, Rupert and Alfred are individually rising to the ranks of top magicians in the gloomy London theater district.Thus, their rivalry is both personal and professional, with hardly any line between the two.
Each man craves the applause that comes with “the prestige,” the concluding third act to every magic trick. The great magic trick at the center of their rivalry is the mystifying Transported Man, with each magician creating his own version of the trick. It proves to be their downfall.
Nolan refuses to tell this tale in a straight chronological fashion. Indeed, as the writer-director of 2000’s brilliant Memento, Nolan is a master of these narrative tricks. Here, Nolan’s flashbacks even have flashbacks, and his voiceover narration is often the reading of someone else’s narration. Thus clever and entertaining tricks are happening in the story and in the telling of the story. The result is delightful, if not occasionally confusing.
Perhaps the film’s only flaw is its lack of acting authenticity. Nolan may be a master at delivering a story, but he isn’t necessarily a master director of actors. Despite a semi-studded cast of characters — including Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson and David Bowie — the acting seems stilted, and it’s not helped by the fake accents being used by nearly all involved. Even the reliable Caine, using his real accent, comes off as unnatural.
Nevertheless, the intelligent story carries the day. Ultimately, as in a magic show, we are asked to suspend our disbelief. Indeed, even though all the intricate parts fit together, some key plot elements rely not just on the contrived but the fantastical. That’s okay. With a show this good, a little nonsense only serves to make the magic more enticing. However, in this magic show of a movie, the plot’s tricks are eventually revealed. After all, it’s the only way to earn the moviegoers’ applause — which it does.
Great suspense • PG-13 • 128 mins.
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