Pirates of the Caribbean 3: Curse of the Matrix

Remember, "The Matrix?" Wasn't that a good film? I'm not a big Keaneau Reeves fan, but this movie played to his strengths of acting like he's perpetually confused and doesn't know what's going on. Reeves has an affinity for that kind of role. Anyway, "The Matrix"... good film. Very sinister, great pacing in the whole revealing of the whole future dystopia thing that we as humans tend to get off on, and at the end, the hero has realized his potential, and he lets the unseen bad guy/master computer know that it's going down, and the hero flies off into the sky, all cool-like.

It could have ended there. The humans were going to be freed from the Matrix by Neo. We didn't know how, but it was going to happen, and we had our imaginations to wonder how it would be done.

Remember, "Pirates of the Caribbean?" Wasn't that a good film? I'm a Johnny Depp fan as I think he's a very versatile actor, and he's made a career out of playing weirdos without being typecast as any one of them - Edward Scissorhands, Willy Wonka, Captain Jack Sparrow, etc. Anyway, "Pirates of the Caribbean"... great film. Very funny with great pacing that never overwhelms you. Lots of inside jokes about Disney, good fight scenes and excellent scenery, and all the actors delivered solid performances, and at the end, the good boy has shown he's a little bit bad, and he's got the girl. The bad boy shows he's just a little bit good and makes a clever getaway and sails off into the horizon for further adventure.

It could have ended there. Boy has got the girl. The lovable rogue has made his getaway, and we had our imagination to wonder how their lives turned out.

Yes, they both could have ended there, but they made too much money. The movies had to have sequels, and they had to have them fast. The third Pirates began filming before the script was finished, and both films had their next sequels filmed together so they could pump out the crap fast while the buzz was still hot about the first movies.

At the end of the first Matrix movie, Neo had the power to remake the Matrix, but like Superman in the comics from decades past, being all powerful makes for boring stories so Neo still had to rely on his fancy judo skills to survive in the Matrix. This allowed for the filmmakers to throw in more fight scenes and more special effects to make up for the lack of a coherent plot.. or plot.

Does that previous sentence sound like it describes something else? "Pirates of the Caribbean 2" by any chance?

Finally, we reach the third movie. All bets are off. Everything we've learned in the first two movies may or may not still apply, and when everything seems lost (mainly the audience) - it's Deus Ex Machina time! Why the hell not? There's no other way to wrap things up quickly, and the movies have essentially painted themselves into a corner.

In the third Matrix movie, Neo is blinded in the real world, but somehow the power he has in the Matrix now manifests itself in the real world - WHAT LUCK! In Pirates, a new character introduced in the second movie is revealed to be an actual goddess of the sea... who's pissed off at Davy Jones (an enemy of the main characters) - WHAT LUCK! Neo with his new powers doesn't really destroy the Matrix but brings it and the real world to an understanding (okay...), and the sea goddess makes life difficult for everyone but evens the odds against Davy Jones and his crew enough for the heroes to save the day.

SPOILERS: In the end, some of the heroes have made sacrifices. Neo dies, but he gets a nice park bench dedicated to his memory in the Matrix, and Will Turner has to take over for Davy Jones, but he at least gets to have sex with Kiera Knightly's character every 10 years.

Meanwhile, another piece of movie-going joy withers and dies in your soul ...

Four Movies in Three Days

I've been putting off seeing the so-called summer blockbusters because I had heard bad things about them, but my friend, Jacinta, came to visit me on Monday, so on Tuesday, we decided to go to the movies and see, "Shrek the Third."

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail or analysis about Shrek (or two of the other movies). It was enjoyable - not as good as the first two. My favorite part was the running joke of whenever the princesses (Fiona, Snow White, Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Sleeping Beauty) were together: There would be a shot of most or all the princesses, the camera would cut to someone else in the scene, and when it returned to the princesses, Sleeping Beauty was zonked out, snoring. That never failed to make me laugh.

After the movie, Jacinta felt we should sneak into another one, and the only available one was, "Fantastic Four 2." The first FF movie wasn't all that great in my opinion. Fortunately, it looked like the first movie was a warm-up. FF2 was a lot better, and it really paid tribute to the comics in various ways like Stan Lee being turned away from Reed and Sue's wedding (happened in the comics), Doom stealing the Silver Surfer's powers, the introduction of the Fantasti-Car, etc.

Spoilers: What was one of the nicer references was the Human Torch basically becoming the Super-Skrull. Towards the climatic battle at the end, the Torch (whose molecules are behaving weirdly due to his first encounter with the Surfer) absorbs all the powers of the team so he can beat the snot out of the Silver Doom (Doom Surfer?). So he still had his fire powers which allowed him to fly up to Doom, hit him with the Thing's fist then stretch out ala Mister Fantastic to grab him and pull him back in for another smack. The Invisible Woman's powers might have slid by me as there was a lot of action at that point. Unfortunately, Galactus was a giant cloud instead of a giant humanoid, but at the end, when the Surfer is rebelling against him, you can see a firey part of the cloud shaped like his helmeted head.

More Spoilers: That was Tuesday. Wednesday saw me back for, "Spider-Man 3." Better than I expected. I'm not a big Venom fan so I hope his death in this one is permanent. Tobey Maguire got to stretch a bit as an actor in this one - particularly the scenes where he's being affected by the evil alien symbiote/costume. Best line (when Spidey is "evil" and fighting Harry Osborn, the new Green Goblin): "Aw, is Goblin Junior gonna cry?" Sandman was definitely a good character. Kind of tragic, not overly so. In the comics, he eventually goes good(er), and as he's the only Spidey villain in 3 movies to not die, hopefully we'll see him in the future.

Today (Thursday) was, "Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At My Patience's End." I'll have to start a new post to unleash my venom at this... film.