Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

This movie brings to mind three very unflattering words for a movie. Actually they are pretty unflattering words no matter what you use them for. They are contrived, uninspired, and boring which is exactly what this movie was. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides lacked in everything that pretty much makes a decent movie BUT it did keep up the traditions of all the other Pirate movies that came before it and, a convoluted plot. Not to mention some pretty horrible acting. This may be the number one movie at the box office right now but it will NOT be for long. I don't see how it could be after what I just saw.

Directed by a man who has had NO experience with this kind of film should have given me pause. Due to the magnificent job Kenneth Branagh did with Thor (plus not having much else to do today) I went in hopeful. Rob Marshall who directed the critically acclaimed Chicago, the controversial Memoirs of a Geisha, and the atrocious Nine that was his last film was responsible for this Pirates installment. So by my count that's two really bad films in a row regardless of how much money it makes. Honestly, if you put Johnny Depp in any film it's bound to be somewhat successful (see Sweeney Todd). This movie lacks what the first Pirates movie possessed in spades and that was charm.

The lack of charm though is shocking when you look at the cast surrounding Depp. The beautiful (and pregnant at the time) Penelope Cruz, the amazing Geoffrey Rush, Ian McShane, and reprising his role as Captain Jack Sparrows father Keith Richards. Now outside of Keith that's an award winning cast who has done amazing work in their day but they slept walked through this project. The phrase "going through the motions" definitely come to mind. Marshall tried to recapture the sword fighting magic of the first film and fell short, woefully so.

The movie opens with some old man pulled out of the ocean by a fishing boat and immediately whisked off to be seen by the King of Spain. Makes sense to you? Me neither. This Spaniard King then sends an armada out to find the fountain of youth and when the Brits here this they send their own man out to find it first. That man is the legendary Captain Barbosa, now in the employ of the Crown. Also on the case is the most feared Pirate (or so you are to believe) on the high seas Captain Blackbeard. Where was he in the last two crappy Pirate offerings is never explained but why quibble with details? So it's a race now to the fountain of youth and let me just say I never new mermaids were such vicious creatures.

The dialogue was contrived and lacking in any real humor. Don't get me wrong, there were funny moments but they were few and far in between. That didn't keep the makers from trying really hard to make you laugh though. As everyone knows however the harder you try to make someone laugh the less funny you are. The one decent thing about this movie was the music. This time around the score was again composed and executed by the award winning Hans Zimmer so the sense of musical continuity is intact. Is that enough to warrant spending the money on a ticket for this film? Hardly! So in my opinion I would wait for the DVD and I'm talking about the bootleg variety. See you at the theater!

Priest

Before I start in on what I think about "Priest" can someone PLEASE write Paul Bettany a comedy or something? Seriously! I'm sure he's happy in his personal life being married to one of the most beautiful women walking but on screen the man it seems isn't allowed to crack even a smile. Not to mention having a thing for playing priests and fallen angels as he does in this hybrid of a movie. I call it a hybrid because it's a combination of so many different genres that it's sometimes hard to keep count and harder still to take this movie seriously at times. I never thought in my wildest dreams that someone would try to mix The Matrix, Mad Max, a spaghetti western, what appears to be Jedi Knights, and a horror story all in the same pot. Paul does his best though to convince you that this is a very serious thing and it should be taken as such.

"Priest" is a movie loosely based on the graphic novels created by Hyung Min-woo about life after the war between vampire and man. For centuries the two species have waged war against each other with the vampires always getting the best of man. That is until the "Church" creates their secret weapon, the priests who are trained in vampire combat They then turn the tide of the conflict and the vampires are rounded up and placed on reservations while man retreats behind walled off mega cities, reservations of their own. The Priests, once the saviours of mankind have been disbanded since the war is over and the church now fears their creation. The Priests are not allowed to speak to each other due to the church's decree and do to so, to go against the church is to go against God.

The movie starts off with a band of Priests led by Paul Bettany, entering the largest hive Mira Soral with orders from the clergy to slay the Queen. Something goes horribly wrong however and the few that survived were lucky to make it out alive. That night haunts Bettany's character and he goes to the automated confessionals to alleviate his mind and his guilt. He then gets word that the woman he once loved and her family were attacked by a vampire hoard out on the plains. Priest (that's Paul's characters name) asks permission to investigate but the church denies his request. Him being the stoic Priest that his, can you guess his next move? That's right reader, he disobeys and fires up the coolest thing in the movie, his Priest sanctioned jet bike.

Along side Bettany in this genre bending film is Karl Urban doing his best Clint Eastwood (it's in his hat), Maggie Q as Priestess (seriously, that's her characters name), Cam Gigandet as Sheriff Hicks, Christopher Plummer as Monsignor Orelas, and Stephen Moyer (yes THAT Stephen Moyer that's in that top rated cable show featuring vampires) as Owen Pace. Directed by Scott Charles Stewart whose last film was "Legion" also starring Paul Bettany as that fallen angel I mentioned earlier, this movie wasn't nearly as stylized as it could have been. The ball was dropped more than a few times on more than a few occasions and to think there may be another one, maybe even two more Priest movies. The score by Christopher Young, the guy who replaced Danny Elfman on Spider Man 3 was decent but nothing to write home about. All in all this was a less than decent film and unless you are a TRUE fan of the graphic novel then I would skip it and if you love the graphic novel then ignore it altogether because it just may piss you off.

See you at the theater.

Thor

Now I have to admit that when I heard this movie was going to be directed by Kenneth Branagh I wasn't all that excited to see it but I'm glad I changed my mind. Going in I always thought there were two kinds of super hero movies, the good kind which encompassed films like Superman and Superman II, the Spider Man movies, the first two X-Men films and certain others. Then there are the bad kind like the Fantastic Four films, The Incredible Hulk films, the last X-Men film, and the rest of the Supermen films after the first two. I wondered where Thor would fall and I can surprisingly say it belongs in the good batch and I'll be damned if it didn't raise the bar.

As stated above Thor is directed by one of the preeminent Shakesperean actors of our day and it was a job well done. Kenneth Branagh lately has been known stateside thanks to the Harry Potter movies where he plays the inept professor Gilderoy Lockhart. He has directed other films but none of them were commercial standouts. There's nothing on his directorial resume that would lead anyone to think that he could pull this movie off but he is a competent director as well as a confident one and he had a pretty good story to work with which always helps. A pretty good cast doesn't hurt either and he definitely had that. Starting with two Oscar award winners in Natalie Portman and Sir Anthony Hopkins the cast also includes the likes of Idris Elba, Stellan Skarsgard, Rene Russo, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, and the relative newcomer Chris Hemsworth who plays the God of Thunder. You last saw him play George Kirk the doomed father of James T. Kirk in JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot and if you blinked you missed him in A Perfect Getaway as Kale. This is his first starring role and he was great. The story deals with the spoiled and arrogant future King of Asgard who starts a war with the Frost Giants even after his father, King Odin forbade him not to. For this Odin bannishes Thor from Asgard and sends him to languish on Earth.

There's palace intrigue and treachery, sibling rivalry that turns in seething jealousy between Thor and his brother Loki who holds a very interesting secret about his past and where he comes from. Odin knows Thor can and will be a great king but he also knows that Thor has a lot of growing up to do. And while you wonder why Odin would pick Earth of all places to bannish his son to it seems to be the right planet for the job. He falls for Jane Foster played by Natalie Portman and she teaches him that there are some things worth risking your life for. Until he learns that lesson, his mighty hammer remains stuck in the earth like Excalibur. The moment Thor faces down the Destroyer and puts his life on the line does he become worthy of reclaiming his hammer, his power, and his place back in Asgard.

The film is a joy to watch, it's charming and at times completely hilarious. If you ever read any of the comic books you would have to admit that visually and costume wise the movie is stunning. The pages of the comics are wonderfully brought to life so the movie for real Thor fans is very much worth the wait and if Alexandra Byrne isn't at least nominated for her costume designs then something is just wrong in the world. The score is done by Patrick Doyle who over his career has had more misses than hits with his scoring capabilities and this time it's more miss than hit. Thankfully he's scoring a film that doesn't need to be carried by the music so you barely notice the trite heroic themes that well up from time to time. That being said, this movie is definitely worth the price of admission.

See you at the theater.