Stealing

Rating: Null/10 (11 July 2003)

Spoilers herein.
Disney films usually have a moral. Here they stretch themselves in several ways beyond the obvious first-time PG-13 rating. The implicit moral here is that it is okay to steal so long as the establishment is unreasonable. And further that there is a higher justice.
What's interesting is how the Disney machine works. They'll exploit any cinematic notion they can to give a thrill if that thrill is somehow tied to increased admissions. Disney has the industry's most advanced lab on these matters: they track artistic notions and cognitive science in quest of maturing artistic notions as fodder for their products. This is no collection of artistic types, but serious scientists, intent on engineering your response.
Put those two together and here you have an interesting theft: the wholesale adoption of the architectural camera. We saw it in "Nemo" where the whole thing played with the three-dimensionality of the space. We saw it in the second Harry Potter movie, where they paid lots of attention to the placement of the situation in relationship to the actual building of the school. In Hollywood filmdom, this technique -- always locating the camera in relationship to a wall -- was developed by Terry Gilliam. That explains why Depp works so well with the effect. He knows where your eyes are supposed to come from.
Rush has worked on four films that reference the placement of self in space. These two together: the good and bad pirates, are both intelligent actors that can listen to the lab. This is an engineered product, openly stolen from others (like the equally well- engineered "Charlies Angels 2").
It's not as clever as "Nemo," not something you will actually remember like "12 Monkeys," not something that challenges you like "Panic Room" started out to be, not as self-aware as "Hulk"s swoops. But it uses the same notions, and uses them well enough to give a good ride. Now that this has entered the mainstream, what's next for real creative types?
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 4: Worth watching.