yo ho ho

This morning, recking not the demands of encyclopedia entries, I dragged my long-suffering mother off to see Pirates of the Carribbean II: Old Uncle Cthulhu And All, as a result of which I am able to state that its Tentacular Discomfort Index at times exceeds the green on the maternal ick-o-meter. However, as she would be the first to admit, there's a lot of consolation in gratuitous Johnny Depp. (Me, I was brung up, at least through post-adolescence, on a solid diet of Lovecraft, and thus find tentacles not only acceptable, but inevitable. Likewise Johnny Depp).

I didn't have high expectations of the movie, as a result of the sustained diss-fest currently being enacted by any critic within a half-mile of the film, and consequently* I thoroughly enjoyed it. The usual list follows.

• Okay, first off, is that a new Disney intro/trademark/logo thing, or have I simply failed to notice until now its incredible length, pretentiousness, ego, over-glitziness and entirely Harry Potteroid aerial train shot? Nothing like having the first twenty seconds of the film grab you by the collar and scream "DISNEY!!!!" in your face to the accompaniment of cheesy music.
• And, while on the subject of Disney: when the revolution comes and the company and all its works are first up against the wall, carved on its shrivelled little black heart will be found a simple mantra: PATRONISE THE HELL OUT OF THE EXOTIC OTHER. In Disney's world, non-white, non-American cultures may at times be exotically appealing (viz. the dead sexy voodoo-lady), but they are inevitably primitive, laughable, barbaric and easily outwitted by the forces of Civilisation. (Actually, thinking about it, the poles of identification in this movie are interesting given its big-budget American-ness: the major love interests are English, and Jack Sparrow occupies a strange cultural niche of his own. I have a sneaking suspicion that Jack's occasional ineptitude and Will's gormlessness offer the viewer a level of distance from their antics: it's not a clear-cut heroic identification, and one of the things the film invites us to do is to laugh at the British quite a lot.)
• Rampant cannibal cliches aside, I loved the escape from the village, with its giant swinging and rolling cages: classic physical comedy, beautifully timed, and with more than a touch of Goon Show in the cages running around with feet sticking out the bottom.
• Even more so, I completely adored the three-way sword-fight for heroes, damsel, key, box, Flying Dutchmen, pirates and water-wheel, which was choreographed with the precision and complete lack of reality of French bedroom farce: a gratuitous, self-indulgent ballet with its own comic inevitability divorced from all reason or logic. It's actually not as simple a pleasure as it seems.**
• I may be imagining things (or being distracted by the semi-naked!bondage!Orli), but I think Orli may have found a few more acting muscles somewhere. Little ones. He kinda almost manages to brood at some points. I'm actually beginning to think he's simply acutely self-conscious - he's unable to deliver a line in any way that doesn't suggest he's simply delivering a line. If you watch him rather than listening to him, his non-verbal communication is actually rather more convincing than anything he says. (And, no, this doesn't mean I simply think he's hot, since generally I don't, much).
• Any movie that can seriously present an octopus-headed Davy Jones playing melodramatic Gothic chords on a giant pipe organ with his tentacles has to have my vote.

Overall, this was a darker***, considerably more slimy film than the first one, and somewhat shot in the foot by its unrepentant EmpireStikesBackism, which leaves you too palpably groping for closure. I think that's an error: this kind of madcap swashbuckling adventure needs to stump up with some actual narrative gratification, or it limps too far away from its genre roots. Theory: I think I'm going to enjoy this film even more when I've watched the third one.

* this is possibly sheer cussedness.
** this is possibly a perception caused by my Structuralist leanings.
*** this is possibly the effect of Ster Kinekor's bloody feeble projectors.