I thought the fishy pirates ROCKED. The effects and general art direction were pretty outstanding--except, sadly, for the kraken where I felt that whole water tension thing that makes the scale differences more apparent. But I really really liked Davy's face, and the way it all heaved and moved. I didn't get as much chance to look at all of the rest of the posse, and came away with different favourites like the echidna guy from the friend I saw the movie with (he said something about a pirate whose head came out back...I have no idea... crack of some sort might have been involved). I also appreciated the decline of Bootstrap Bill.

Coolness.

Dave and I went to see PotC last night with Victor and Myainsel. We tried to get into the 9:30 showing, and couldn't get in until 11:00. It was worth the wait. I loved it. I thought that the fishy pirates were so well done and realistic looking, except for the starfish on Bootstrap Bill, which was just kind of lame. I loved how there seemed to be different stages of fishiness depending how long they had served under Davy Jones. I loved scruffy, nothing left to lose, Norrington. I loved everything about the three-way fight, including how over the top it was and Elizabeth throwing a tantrum about it and being ignored. I thought the dramatic scenes were more dramatic than the first one and that the comedic scenes were more over the top than the first one as well. I missed the lady pirate from the first film. There was clapping in our theatre when Geoffrey Rush's character appeared. Dave totally called what the after the credits scene was going to be as we were waiting for the endless credits to end.

Yay pirates! I am pleased to hear about the terrifying space monkeys. I can't wait to see it--hopefully tomorrow.

And thought about AU Jack/Dead!Will. I feel like such a Buffista.

Heh. Along these lines, I have to confess that I went to a production of Amadeus at the Berkshire Theatre Festival last night, and was totally ashamed to find myself wondering if there was any Mozart/Salieri fic. (It was a good production, although Amadeus isn't my favorite play, but Mozart was played by Randy Harrison (Justin Taylor on Queer as Folk)! Very exciting.)

Robert Downey, Jr is writing his memoirs.

Well, those memoirs should be interesting.

those memoirs should be interesting.

Depends on how much he can remember.

I knew something like that was about to happen, but yikes. It was fun to feel the whole audience jump, though.

Yeah, someone behind me screamed. Heh.

I thought it was good and fun, but not nearly as good as the first one. I thought the first one had a very impressive script with a surprisingly coherent plot, but this one was kind of lacking in that department. This one had stronger character development, however. Elizabeth is even more of a badass, and I like that they took her into the grey at the end. I agree with Strega that the fishy pirates aren't inherently as cool as the zombie pirates, although the special effects were good. (And I also enjoyed the throwaway "how to pronounce 'kraken' bit," but I generally love those two characters. I even enjoyed the gratuitous "Here are everyone's motivations in the fight scene we are watching" bit.) Most of the giant set-pieces felt like...giant set-pieces rather than anything with a point. They could have cut out the whole cannibal subplot and replaced it with something that fit better. I missed the cleverness of the first one. I did like the theme of desire as it pertained to the compass and the characters. I like thematics.

Regarding the end, I remembered seeing Geoffrey Rush's name attached to the movie since forever, and I didn't understand how he could be in the movie since Barbossa was kinda dead, and there were fleeting moments during the movie where I expected him to show up, but then I forgot. As soon as Miss Cleo said her line, though, I knew it was going to be him.

Pretty much everyone I saw it with was extremely disappointed. But there were pirates and monkeys and shenanigans, so it was fun.

Oh! I was pissed that they killed the Indian guy within half an hour. Heh.

Depends on how much he can remember.

A need for accuracy hasn't prevented anyone else from writing their memoirs...

Anyway, he can just check court records for the salient points.

Oh! I was pissed that etc...

Yeah, I liked him. And! And! they left the key dog on the island with the cannibals.

Loved what they did with Scruffington - and boy howdy, does his resignation and disappearance provide fodder for fic.

An IMDb review says the following:

Filming the first movie, they had no idea how much of a hit it would be. This time around they did.

And I think that kind of sums it up. Part of the mad love for the first one is because the fact that it was a good movie was so entirely unexpected.

Another thing I liked was that any time the cage or wheel or whatever bizarre thing passed by, all the characters stopped to look at it with WTF faces.

Saw “Pirates of the Caribbean” -- There were some cute moments, but overall it was distractingly bloated -- the whole movie (2 ½ hours) as well as individual scenes. *** For example, the 3-way sword fight was funny, including Elizabeth’s frustrated reactions. But it went on and on and on and on. We have the long bit on the beach and then the trek to the building, then the long fight on the wheel and then back to the beach and … whatever.

It also seemed too scary and gross in places. There were a lot of kids at the showing I attended and it was too intent for a fair number of them.

I’m also disappointed by the whole “to be continued” thing. I had read only a few stories about the movie so I was not aware of it in advance. I was left with the feeling that there was only enough plot for one sequel and the studio pumped in a lot of bilge to stretch it out to two. ***