Pirates of the Caribbean 4 on Stranger Tides

Johnny Depp goodness. Is there really anyone out there who could make a sexier pirate that Johnny? Not bloody likely!

ON STRANGER TIDES is one of the best PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN movies to date. There were some doubts going into this as two key characters from the original trilogy are missing, Will and Elizabeth Turner. While Will and Elizabeth added a lot to the first three films their absence in the fourth is hardly worth mentioning. A new cast mixed with many old favorites makes for a great story.

On this adventure Jack faces off against Blackbeard, vicious mermaids, and an old girlfriend while searching for The Fountain of Youth. It’s good to see that Jack is keeping busy.

This movie is fun and exciting, loaded with action. There’s even a nice cliff-hanger to encourage the idea of a PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 5. It seems like this franchise can truly go on forever without getting stale. Jack is such a great character that movies about him can never be boring.

The only disappointing aspect of this movie is the very minimal amount of screen time allotted to Jack the Monkey. That monkey is darn cute and kind of serves as a mascot for these films. Besides it’s a simple fact that monkeys should always have maximum screen time.

ON STRANGER TIDES is a great addition to a great franchise. This movie is not to be missed.

Watch Pirates of the Caribbean 4 On Stranger Tides Youtube Trailer :

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Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

There are few roles in which I like Johnny Depp, but every time he plays an off-beat character, I really enjoy his performance. The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is one such occasion.

Here Depp stars as Jack Sparrow, the famous pirate captain of the Black Pearl who was abandoned on an island by his first mate Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush). Through luck, Jack manages to survive and ends up on Port Royal in the Caribbean where he encounters an ongoing soap opera featuring Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightly) the governor's daughter; Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), the son of a former pirate but taken in by the governor, and Norrington (Jack Davenport), the commander in charge of the armed forces on the island who is set to marry the governor's daughter. Jack not only has to deal with the governor and the commander who consider him a thieving pirate, but also with Barbossa and his crew who have now acquired the infamous curse of the Black Pearl.

One of the best aspects of the film is Depp's walk, which people say I mimicked when I was in Thailand and handed a drink which I just took a sip from but made me feel really woozy (there are stories of people drugging foreigners to take their money but fortunately I was with friends). It completely dominates the film. There's also a clever, but predictable, way out of the situation that Jack ends up being thrust in (namely, how does one kill things that can't die). In general the movie is characterised by situations where at first Jack appears to be doing something stupid but in reality is doing something very smart. This leads to some comic relief.

The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was a surprisingly good movie, much better than I expected. I highly recommend checking it out on the big screen.

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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

The second Harry Potter film is better than the first, not because it is true to the book's story, but because it is true to the book's atmosphere.

The first Harry Potter movie was very good, but it stayed so close to the book that it spread itself too thin trying to get at every single detail. This adaptation of Joanne Rowling's second book (which I think is the weakest among the entire series) does indeed have all the good parts but focuses primarily on the main storyline. The film skips a lot of the background details, which makes for effective pacing, while taking liberties with the story to fit the big screen.

Here Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliff) and his friends, Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) once again encounter Voldemort (Christian Coulson) as a memory that has the power to become real. Voldemort opens the Chamber of Secrets freeing a fearsome Basilisk, an Alien-like snake that can kill with a glance. The snake's attacks threaten to close down Hogwarts School and Harry must stop them or be sent home to live with his foster parents (you can understand his motivation when you meet them at the introduction of every book/film).

The film is darker than the first, with scenes that are definitely creepy: Harry's encounter with a strange hand in Diagon Alley, Ron and Harry getting stuck in a willow tree that attacks them with its branches, Harry and Ron escaping from the giant spiders, and Harry's final battle with the Basilisk. There are also some Orwellian themes touched upon here, including Dobby the Elf's masochism and slavery, the ideal of some of the "Purebloods" to cleanse Hogwarts of the "Mudbloods".

The familiar high-profile cast do a fine job, with the newcomers, Kenneth Branagh as the pompous (and hilarious) new Dark Arts teacher Gilderoy Lockhart, and Jason Isaacs as an evil-oozing Lucius Malfoy, particularly standing out. While the child actors carry their roles well, some of them do tend to overact. The score does a great highlighting the suspense, which there exists a lot of.

The set design and accompanying cinematography and production deserves a paragraph of its own. The integration of computer generated images and the actors is very seamless. The Hogwarts school, the surrounding countryside, and the brief Quidditch match are all rendered with amazing reality.

If the first film was the setup, this one's definitely the payoff. Even though I know what happens next, I can't wait to see it.

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The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is an old adage that has been the basis for many a story. It is the primary plot device behind John Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings classic. Written in 1954-55, with origins dating back to 1937, the first of the three movie installments, which have already been filmed, tries to stay true to the mystical world present in the book. The resulting effort is a definite success.

The star of the story, and the film, is not a person, but an object, a ring. The ring allows one to control a host of other rings handed down to the different peoples of Middle Earth: three rings belong to the immortal elves; seven to the dwarfs; and nine rings to mortal humans. The ring that rules all the others, forged using the fires of Mount Doom by the evil Wizard Sauron (Sala Baker), gives its holder so much power that it corrupts all those who seek to wear it, even the purest.

Of course, there are some peoples that are more pure than others. Humans generally seem incapable of wearing it without being corrupted by its influence (no surprise there). But there exists a diminutive people, the Hobbits, who do seem at least capable of carrying it without being polluted too much. It falls upon one Hobbit, Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood), to take the ring to Mt. Doom, which is the only place where it can be destroyed.

Frodo is aided in his quest by the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen), the elf Legolas Greenleaf (Armando Bloom), the dwarf Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), two humans Strider aka Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) and Boromir (Sean Bean), and three other Hobbits including Frodo's friend Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin). The story chronicles how Frodo, being a reluctant hero, travels through mysterious and dangerous lands of breathtaking beauty, and fights terrific monsters in the context of awesome towers and citadels, to achieve his goal.

Perhaps one of the most visionary aspects about Tolkien's work is how he set the stage for a Dungeons and Dragons style video-game. Director Peter Jackson imbibes to the film the same feel present the book, in terms of traversing a diverse variety of landscapes, while encountering a diverse variety of creatures, friend and foe alike. Watching the film, it's easy to become mesmerised by the fantasy that is unfolding purely based on the cinematography.

Like with Joanne Rowling's Harry Potter (or for that matter, Stephen King's It), this film does not live up what I imagined, but it does a great job of presenting what Jackson and his co-workers imagined. The special effects are spectacular and meticulously done, perhaps even better than those observed in Harry Potter. There are no cop-outs here and every place that it matters, the effort and the expense have been evidently put in. The soundtrack sometimes overwhelms the dialogue, of which there is a lot, interspersed between the action sequences. Do not miss seeing this on the big screen. This is how movies should be made.

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