Genre – Film, Live Action Churn
Total Runtime – 2 Hours 16 Minutes
Spoilers – Not Really
A Blockbuster Bargain Bin purchase, I never really had any interest in watching it. I did watch the first three films, but the story arc that carried them was over. My reaction to the prospect of a fourth was decidedly ‘meh’. I don’t think I need to provide much background on this – Disney made a movie about an amusement park ride that somehow did well, then decided to milk the concept far past its natural conclusion.
My review of this installment can be summed up with a quote from the first film, “We named the monkey Jack.”
The movie is lacking in characters we have any investment in. The plot was a paint by numbers “get to the next action scene” production. But since I didn’t care about any of these characters, there were no stakes. I got up during one of the chase scenes to get my lunch and didn’t even bother to pause. The film had become background noise. Deaths, survivals, contrivances, I didn’t care.
The Cap’n Jack Show can’t carry a movie, and that’s all they had. They squandered the strong introduction of a villain by making him almost entirely cookie cutter. Everyone was headed for the same place for the same reason and we knew the returning characters from earlier films weren’t in any danger of being killed off lest the cash cow go with them. The film failed utterly to establish the Spanish whatsoever. I couldn’t tell you their names. Their behavior at the end was no twist because they were not established beyond “yeah, they’re here too.”
How do I drag this review out to my target length of 1k words? I could do a plot summary, but the plot is just “everyone is going to find the fountain of youth.”
I could talk about the special effects, but then I’d be complaining about the fake-looking CGI snake that didn’t even contribute to the scene it was in.
I could talk about how the film makers think whale oil is explosive and doesn’t go rancid when left untended for who knows how long. But bad science is par for the course.
I could talk about how they ruined their opportunity for tension when Blackbeard’s crew was trying to bait the mermaids into a trap. After all, the sailors in the boat explained outright how they are hostile creatures who feed on sailors. You want to make that scene tense, don’t have the long conversation about what mermaids do to sailors, shift the mood to the music when they show up, then shift to the action scene. Telling us beforehand defused the whole sequence.
I was annoyed at the ‘precariously balanced ship’ sequence where it was clearly half on land and shifting more weight towards the landward side would stabilize it easily. So many contrived action sequences and absurd luck, none of the cleverness that helped save earlier installments.
I can’t stretch this review out any longer – skip this one.
I found myself wondering whether Depp had an expensive divorce to pay for around this time, but I quick perusal of Wikipedia suggests not. Child support maybe, but apparently not a divorce. Perhaps there were other expensive habits to maintain.
I’ve never seen any of this series of movies. Are any of them worth an adult’s two hours of attention and other associated costs?
the first was quite entertaining
the sequels went from bad to worse
Stop at #3.
When Depp first brought out Jack Sparrow it was so far removed from what was expected of a pirate movie that it was amazing.
And he turned into a parody of himself by the second movie.
I never liked the character. He deserved more abuse than he got.
Perhaps Depp is a graduate of the Nic Cage school of role choices?
“What does it pay and I’ll take it.”
Tell us what you really thought about the production, UCS?
Sounds really, really interesting to a guy with only 14 feet of boat experience.
Were the fish biting? What kind? How big? Things like that I can identify with.
GT, all divorces are expensive, some just cost more.
“…some just cost more.”
they all cost the same…your soul. The money part is just incidental.
I don’t believe my divorce (technically a dissolution, and amicable) cost me my soul, but some would argue that because I’m a ginger, I didn’t have one to lose. 👩🦰
Fair point.
As another Ginger, who divorced yet another ginger, I can safely say that it was soul enriching.
they all cost the same…your soul
Only if you were married to a succubus.
My divorce was pretty amicable (no kids). It cost some money, but in retrospect it wasn’t ruinous. She wanted away from me (for reasons that I understand and haunt me to this day). It did didn’t cost me my soul, but it left some scars.
I feel the same way about mine.
I’m still recovering after 3 years…
LOL
I have never watched a second of this franchise and never will.
If you want a good movie set on boats, I recently watched Dead Calm.
Nichole Kidman? Not a bad one.
I have a distinct memory of her butt from that.
Both that and the movie as a whole were good.
Butt? Whole?
I just cant with you people…
“Buttery Wholesomeness” was the slogan of Black Dog Games.
Very good movie!
Depp was very enjoyable in the first movie, but Disney couldn’t leave well enough alone.
I can’t stretch this review out any longer – skip this one.
Easy enough
Disney made a movie about an amusement park ride that somehow did well, then decided to trash the ride by removing the wenching and insert Jack Sparrow.
That is absolutely true and irritating.
It’s not as bad as Disney’s sports era.
Today I learned about Murdoch Murdoch, supposedly a Nazi propaganda series cleverly disguised as a crudely made web cartoon. It has been banned from YouTube and pretty much everything else except this:
https://archive.org/details/MurdochMurdochArchive/
See, it must be memory-holed not just for being Nazi propaganda, but for being surprisingly popular, thus proving its tricknology is powerful enough to brainwash normies.
The normies learned the lessons of Pepe the Frog of Kekistan well. Never again.
this video critiques the series from a neutral perspective
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNvTjnqyt78
and here’s the usual narrative that gets pushed
https://medium.com/tales-from-the-alt-right/murdoch-murdoch-the-alt-rights-sitcom-6c033d30d2ae
The first Pirates flick is fantastic. Just a fun popcorn romp, and Depp and Rush do a great job with an entertaining story. And yep, the series derailed pretty much immediately after the first installment, with Disney and the others making the predictable plunge for $ down the rabbit hole of ‘nostalgia’ for a year-old flick.
A great example of a film to simply enjoy and not take too seriously, effective entertainment for the investment. I strongly approve.
It’s all so tiresome.
***
Kolterman is only working a couple days a week, on the far side of the base in a room by themselves. Her hours were reduced in case she had to go on administrative leave — a way for commanders to mitigate the impacts of the policy and buy time for affected service members.
Sam Rodriguez is on administrative leave from the Navy and not working at all — but unlike Kolterman, they decided to take a voluntary separation from the service.
The lieutenant junior grade and medical corps officer initially had good reason to stay: They had just been selected for a promotion from enlisted to officer last fall, and their commissioning was held in April.
“I was going to dig in my heels and stick this out as long as I could,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez has a master’s degree in social work, and the promotion would open the door to completing the hours needed to earn a clinical social work license.
***
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/stay-or-go-for-some-transgender-san-diego-sailors-and-marines-trump-s-ban-leaves-one-option-come-and-find-me/ar-AA1IvH62
https://www.realcleardefense.com/2023/07/21/dod_memo_says_transgender_soldiers_can_skip_deployments_967779.html
I’ve fucking had it with tranny shit.
I am not going to walk around on eggshells the way everyone who thinks they’re oh so moderne is doing. I’ve known it’s all bullshit for much longer than the smart set who are latching on to the latest thing.
“I can’t stretch this review out any longer – skip this one.” No problem. I skipped the first three. Skipping the fourth is easy.
The first one was good, the second one has a well choreographed sword fight, but is otherwise forgettable.
Hear, hear. I have no idea what the appeal was supposed to be with any of them.
I think because it is a Disney movie we are supposed to clap like trained seals. Also it was a theme park ride they turned into a live action movie so we should swoon. It reminds me of the Critical Drinker joke about consuming content simply because it’s there.
I liked the scene in the first one where the interspersed moonlight causes the pirates to change back and forth from humans to skeleton zombies. Then one guy sticks a bomb in a skeleton’s rib cage and shoves him into the shadows so the bomb gets stuck inside him long enough for it to explode.
That sort of Looney Tunes violence really hits the spot for me.
This is the only movie I watched in the rebooted 3D. My niece wanted to go so I took her, they said with this new 3D if you didn’t wear the glasses the movie would look just fine. after about 10 minutes I was nauseous from the 3D so I took off the glasses, It, in fact, did not look just fine. To be fair, I believe this movie was converted to 3D, not shot in it, as was the fad at the time.
Ugh…back to work tomorrow. Then, off to NJ the following week. Yay me
If you don’t have to pack into a fleet vehicle with your cow orkers, then work travel isn’t so bad.
So say we all.
Or… now I do, after a year on disability and a month now of getting back into the game and kind of missing being lazy.
Lazy will be waiting for you when you retire.
I can’t wait. Because I am *not* feeling it this morning, ugh.
***
At the same time, Trump has also expressed more support for Graham’s bill proposing new sanctions on Russia, including a 500% tariff on goods imported from countries that purchase Russian oil, gas, and uranium. The president, however, has repeated that he should have the power to later waive the sanctions rather than Congress. The bill has 85 co-sponsors in its current form.
On Sunday, Graham reiterated that the only way to end the war in Ukraine is to pressure countries aiding Russia to “choose between the American economy and helping Putin.”
“The big offender here is China, India, and Brazil,” Graham said. “China, India, and Brazil, you’re about to get hurt big time if you keep helping Putin.”
***
[Kif sigh]
edgy new parody musician makes fun of Christianity and white people
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJiwovX3mNA
It’s darkly amusing watching “China, India, and Brazil” not give two shits what the U.S. has to say about anything. And the fact that it has nothing to do with Pootie or Ukraine.
The Boy Who Cried Nazi
Once upon a time, a naughty boy was always playing tricks on people. One day, he discovered the best way to frighten people was to yell “Nazi!” and watch everyone run around and panic. Later, it was easier to just draw a swastika somewhere and then the same thing would happen. He did this so many times that eventually no one paid any more attention to his swastikas or cries of “Nazi!”. From time to time, the boy would try to frighten people with his old tricks, but it never worked again. Then there was news that Nazis really were coming to town and were going curse the land so that it would always be winter, but never Christmas. But because of the boy’s lies and pranks, no one believed the news. Soon enough, a column of SS in their sinister yet oddly stylish Hugo Boss uniforms came marching up the road while singing Erika most Nazi-ly. The boy shouted himself yelling and trying to warn people that there really were Nazis this time, but no one believed him. And so the boy and the townsfolk were captured and forced to dig anti-tank ditches on the Eastern Front until they were captured by Soviets and sent off to a Siberian gulag.
***
Republicans and conservatives have been called Nazis since 1933.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goppemeXnFI
They missed the ball in the fourth one.
The story was about the sailor and the mermaid.
My guess is that it ended up on the cutting room floor because of Depps enormous ego.
Off to the races, I go! Yesterday went shockingly well, despite being assigned my least favorite duty to start the shift.
Feeling optimistic. That’ll show that damn Horrorscope. (I like that Eve 6 album, though it’s been a long time. Better than expected musicians. Was good high school material.
Onward and upward to y’all as well.
Good Lives.
It is a great album.
It’s Monday! Get up and get some, Glibfriends!
👽🖖⛈️
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW8UlrtcEac
🎶🎶
Good morning, Sean, Ted’S., Roat, EfE…and maybe 3door?
Morning. How goes?
Not the most auspicious of starts to the day – my back hurts even though the most strenuous thing I did yesterday was change the sheets on the bed. (I blame the fitted sheet.) Then the cat got up on the bathroom counter demanding my attention and knocked over a water glass. (Luckily the glass itself didn’t fall on the floor – just all the water in it.) I’m hoping it all gets better from here.
How are you today?
I’m in the office despite my protestations. I was of a mind “I’ve almost finished this pay period without using any leave” then I realized the 4th was in this pay period and holidays are recorded as leave on the timecard. 🙁
Oh, yeah – I almost forgot: Happy French Prison Day!
😱
Next comes the head chopping and the anarchy!
https://www.fox29.com/news/group-teen-boys-arrested-dunkin-burglary-new-castle-county
13/14 year olds. FFS.
Juvenile delinquents run on Dunkin’?
Trying to keep up with the 12 year olds in nearby Philly?
🄳🄴🄿🄾🅁🅃 🅃🄷🄴🄼 🄰🄻🄻.
I’m up for deporting the Mall of America.
First you gotta catch em all.
Scrabble players?
LOL
https://www.picklesburgh.com/pickle-riding/
Ummmm…
Don’t kink shame the Yinzers.
They’ve got enough to be ashamed of already.
Is It Time to Stop Snubbing Your Right-Wing Family?
That’s treason talk.
They realized staying away didn’t make us miserable?
I see a pattern of recognizing things didn’t work out as intended:
America Would Be Better Off If Trump Won in 2020
Well at least the long nightmare would be over by now.
🙄
suh’ fam
whats goody
Good morning, homey!
It’s raining.
Up here, too. And Im heading to the (419) for a couple of days.
Mornin’, reprobates! You too, UCS.
Seems my laptop got a drive by Windows update overnight. Which left it in the BIOS screen. Rebooted and went directly to Windows bootloader. Bye-bye grub, I’ll need to reinstall from a thumb drive to get to my linux partition. Fuck Microsoft.
Good morning, ‘patzie!
Mornin’, GT. I see that your governor wannabe is making some noise. Been a while since an Ohio gubernatorial candidate made the Noo Yawk papers. Well, the Post, anyway.
::DDGs:: Well, Viv, that’s all well and good…but do we really want a bunch of Noo Yawkers here?
Maybe as long as they stay up near Cleveland.
😥
(I’m speaking, of course, of NYCers. Upstaters are more than welcome! 😉)
Even when I couldn’t afford the spare hardware, I never got the point of dual booting a single system. Maybe it’s because I always have paralle tasks sitting open and shutting down is a hassle in of itself.
Maybe it’s because I’m lazy.
I’m sorry about grub. I hope Windows hasn’t gone and done something like added some form of encryption that overwriting the boot loader would brick the windows partition. That would be just like them.
I have no idea WTF they did. The BIOS screen was at the prompt giving the option of saving changes or exiting without saving. When I chose exit without saving, it just returned to the same prompt. Had to power off.
If you really need to run Windows, run it under VirtualBox.
Been there, done that. This was originally a Windows box, I didn’t care to completely wipe Windows and then purchase a license to install to VB.
Mornin’
Good morning, DEG! Going to the gym?
Morning all
Good morning all.
Time to stop snubbing family? I think there is a meme for this.
https://a.pinatafarm.com/500×562/376d49283c/i-dont-think-about-you-at-all-mad-men.jpg
*checks watch*
I might have forgotten to wind it.