Tag: Pirates of the Caribbean

Re-View2 Comments

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) Re-View

Ben

The reason that the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels fail to impress is because the original Pirates film should never have been successful or even “worked” in the first place. It was a film idea that originated from a theme park ride. It was a film about Pirates, which until this film had come along, were camp, stereotypical and silly. It starred Johnny Depp pretending to be Keith Moon pretending to be a pirate. The film shouldn’t work! Except many of those reasons is why the film does work. Shockingly, Pirates was an original idea. It was based (loosely) on a … Continue reading Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) Re-View

Views4 Comments

Don’t use two films to tell a story when one will do!

Ben

Die Hard, Indiana Jones and Toy Story, three pretty perfect trilogies. In my opinion there isn’t one film in any of these series that has a huge, detrimental effect on the others. This is because every single one of those films is a single story, not trying to carry over any plot-threads, unanswered questions or huge story arcs from any previous film and what’s more, the first film didn’t try to set up the sequels before it had even finished! This has been a ridiculous trend in films that I don’t think ever really works. Recently I watched the worst possible case … Continue reading Don’t use two films to tell a story when one will do!

Review3 Comments

The Three Musketeers (2011) Review

Ben

There are some stories and characters that if you just adapt and stick to the bare bones of what has made them timeless classics, you can always, with very little effort or talent, make a half-decent, watchable film. I’m not talking about a masterpiece everytime but just a film that when you leave the cinema or turn off the DVD, you nod, your happy with the last two hours you’ve spent and you move on. If you have any skill or talent at all, you can take those timeless and amazing characters and make something brilliant. The kind of characters I’m … Continue reading The Three Musketeers (2011) Review

Review2 Comments

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) Review

Ben

Pirates of the Caribbean works best when it’s not about Jack Sparrow. I think most people would agree that since the first film, the Pirates of Caribbean franchise has never really managed to rekindle that magic and it is because of one character, Jack Sparrow. The problem Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer have is that after they made the first film, what they created was one of cinema’s greatest characters. Johnny Depp had embodied a brilliant, funny, devious, courageous, bad boy pirate who is fantastic to watch and brings excitement and sparkle to the screen. What this led to was Disney and Jerry doing what most … Continue reading Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) Review

Views2 Comments

Movies that should be continued as cartoons

Ben

Two things inspired this article, my Ghostbusters 3 “rant” and Napoleon Dynamite review. I ended my Ghostbusters 3 article by deciding that the only way forward for the franchise was not a third (and probably disappointing) film but actually a cartoon. Napoleon Dynamite spurred me on further because they have continued this film with a cartoon. I have already shared my views on why this isn’t working but what it did get me thinking about was which films should be continued as cartoons and why…     The Matrix This seems obvious. How cool would a “mature” cartoon set in the world of … Continue reading Movies that should be continued as cartoons

Review4 Comments

The Tourist (2010) Review

Ben

  When is the last time you saw Johnny Depp play a “straight” or “normal” role. What I mean by this is when is the last time he wasn’t covered in make-up, acting goofy or part of a cast/movie which required him to play an eccentric. Don’t get me wrong, Depp is fantastic in those roles. There is no doubting that Pirates of the Caribbean would be nothing without him and that he was clearly the best thing in Charlie and Chocolate Factory (even if his take on Willy Wonka wasn’t how I’d have interpreted it). I saw the new trailer for Dark Shadows, the new … Continue reading The Tourist (2010) Review