More Hollywood

Rating: 2/10 (9 July 2006)

The 1st movie was a pleasant surprise - with great scriptwriting, and off the charts character development by Johnnie Dep. Pirates 2 is a different ball of wax. Have you ever noticed the red flags of movie execs meddling with a perfectly good movie? Pirates 2 has all the tell tale signs. (We can thank Johnnie Depp for salvaging the film). The biggest red flag in Pirates 2 are character and storyline digressions that are simply inserted to pander to a segment of viewers. Not to be too blunt ... but what purpose did the swamp lady really contribute? How about bootstrap Turner? Why is he the only crew member on the Flying Dutchman that still resembles a human? His make-up was god awful. What was he wearing? Was that a seaweed fez / and a moo-moo combination? Usually children, an old guy, a strong female, a mom, and an animal/pet are tacked-on to the storyline to ensure that everyone in the audience can find a character to relate to ... no matter how superfluous or pathetic that character might be.
I think the special effects on Davey Jones were amazing. His facial effects were so good (eyes, mouth etc) that i think exploring his backstory would have made world of difference. I am certain that any script writer worth his/her salary developed a brilliant back-story related to the Dutchman's heart, the abandoned colony, and the location of the chest. That could have been explored vs. that brutally long panning shot of the long-boat re-entering the swamp with those pathetic extras in the swamp holding candles. C'mon -- why are people standing in swamp water? That cr_p had Jar-jar binks written all over it. At least try to get details like accents correct so we don't continue raising another generation of idiot children. Is the Dutchman Dutch? If so - then why the Scottish accent.