At World's End
Monday, May 28, 2007
Usually I would have to think of a humourous title for my post which matches it or at least attempt to capture its main gist, but I suppose in this case, lame movie titles perhaps more than fulfill the requirements.
As an unspoken rule, I usually try to avoid watching painfully lousy flops, especially on the big screen, but since I promised Aless (and then later Ben) to accompany them on this excruciating experience and since I usually uphold my word, I spent both money and time on this horrifying sequel to the first two Pirates of the Carribean flicks. Not that the money thing was a big deal, even though I am in a great need to tighten my belt, considering my current "unemployed" status. In fact, the time thing was a more crucial factor to consider.
As I was watching
At World's End, I was trying to decide which was worse: watching Will Ferrell in
Blades of Glory skate about in a skintight leotard and make typical American jokes in his usual screwball comedy offering or watching Johnny Depp exhaust his "savvy-licious" pirate jokes complete with unsatisfactory acting performances from the rest of the cast in sharp juxtaposition to the superb animation and set, which altogether failed to impress? Needless to say, the vote was unanimous for Ferrell's standup comedy performances, which I fondly remember in
The Producers. That I could even contemplate watching
Blades of Glory is probably the first of my attempts to break the ice in my love-hate relationship with Hollywood.
Obviously I have a lot of comments on the poor fare
At World's End was offering for its fans, not that I am one, although I am a mediocre fan of Depp and I did enjoy the first film. Despite the brilliant computer graphics (no doubt already honed and perfected during the first two films) and the supposedly star-studded cast (complete with eye candy and even a competent actor like Depp), the only (and main) thing missing from the film was plot. Read: A lack of plot for Hollywood films equals to suicide, or rather homicide for their viewers hur hur.
As a rule, I try to avoid checking my phone while in the movie-watching process, since it is no doubt distracting and I'm usually too engrossed in the film anyway to bother. Yet, this time round, I was furiously checking my phone for both the time and messages/calls while secretly hoping for a tiny distraction from the eyesore of a film. In fact, I was even tempted (more than once mind you) to walk out of the theatre and a fully packed one at that. Of course, I couldn't even believe (while watching) that such a flop could stretch to almost three hours. Usually flops were short and could at least generate a few laughs, even if they had no meaning or were not worthy of a second viewing.
What was worse was that people were fighting for a seat to watch such a flop e.g. they probably had over 20 screenings of this film on the same day and 99% full or something. Of course, nothing can contend with my disgust for having sat through 3 hours of such nonsense, by which condition I now vaguely resemble these people. Nothing beats the association with people who sat through those agonising 3 hours and came out of it thinking the movie was "cool". Let me remind you again that I was not one of them.
To give Aless some credit, she was cringing during the entire movie, both voluntarily and involuntarily. Now now, I'm not being sarcastic. Her contact lenses were giving her trouble in the left eye, which made her cringe continuously even before the movie had started. Of course, the fact that the movie failed to impress gave her the excuse to go on frequent toilet trips.
At the end, I was just waiting for the credits to start rolling, at which, needless to say, I jumped out of my seat and headed straight for the exit. Actually I was also hoping against hope that, for the sakes of their fans and their cast and crew, there won't be any hints of any more sequels, not that I would actually watch it, (in fact, come to think of it, I don't think I've even watched the second film) just that I would prefer not to be bombarded by the rabid publicity (TV, radio, posters, merchandise) or the paranoia of crazy fans fighting to watch it in the first weekend.
If I could offer some plausibly sound advice to the filmmakers of the Pirates movies, it would be this:
"At World's End" is an ominously significant title. Kindly let it remain as that.
3:28 pm
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