Rogues Gallery
by Ed Owens

 

Anatole France once said, "It is by acts, and not by ideas, that people live." For the filmmakers behind Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, that's probably a good thing. The idea behind the film is a pretty silly one, basing a movie on an amusement park ride--concepts don't get much higher than that. But if the finished product proves anything, it's that silly ideas don't always turn into bad movies.

The setup involves the titular pirates aboard the titular Black Pearl trying to return Aztec gold in order to lift the titular curse. The details of the story are...well...pretty unimportant in the scheme of things. The filmmakers know that what's important is the pillaging of villages, crossing of swords, and buckling of swashes, and they deliver in droves. The film moves very astutely, throwing in a rollicking setpiece anytime the pace begins to sag, and has a good sense of when to take itself seriously and when to let things go. Anyone who's even passingly familiar with the Disney attraction will get a kick out of the many "references" to the movie's animatronic predecessor -- some handled with far more cleverness than the material would seemingly deserve. The comments by Sparrow (Johnny Depp) regarding the pirates' canine jailer is particularly funny in context.

Director Gore Verbinski helms it all with a remarkably light touch, giving the impression of being more of a ringleader than director, overseeing everything without imposing himself on the proceedings. The resulting playfulness is tangible...and contagious. Depp anchors everything as Jack Sparrow (though I quickly wearied of his "always on" persona), while Geoffrey Rush's delicious Barbossa oozes malevolence. The two are a joy to watch on-screen, especially together, and manage to bring a lot to what no doubt started out as very little. I also enjoyed Jonathan Pryce's small turn as governor, though he's given little to do. Orlando Bloom, as the young blacksmith Will Turner, and Keira Knightley, as the apple of Turner's eye, are both fine, but the film ultimately belongs to Depp (and to a lesser extent Rush).

Unfortunately, the film is not as fun as its running time, a lengthy 2:20 that occasionally sinks when it should sail--in fact, it could easily stand to lose a half hour. But the parts that work (such as the nifty skeletal effects as the cursed crew pass through shafts of moonlight) do so well enough to make the overall experience an enjoyable one.

The same can not be said for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a film that proves without a doubt that good ideas don't make great films. Based on the graphic novel (written by Alan Moore and rendered by Kevin O'Neill), the film takes as its premise the notion that some of the greatest fictional characters were not only real, but worked together as a special team.

The League is led by intrepid adventurer Alan Quartermain (Sean Connery), whose legendary exploits have led to such fame that he employs an impostor to screen his visitors, and includes scientist Captain Nemo (Monsoon Wedding's Naseeruddin Shah), rogue thief Rodney Skinner, aka the invisible man (Tony Curran), vampire Mina Harker (Peta Wilson), spy Tom Sawyer (Shane West), chemist Dr. Jekyll (Jason Flemyng), and immortal dandy Dorian Gray (Stuart Townsend). With the exception of Connery, who is clearly getting too old (a fact the film jokingly calls attention to) and seemingly phoning it in, the cast seems willing, but the script is weak.

Actually, weak may be too generous. What starts off as a great premise rapidly devolves into an alarming hodge-podge of seemingly random plot points whose only connection is that they involve the same characters--though even they come and go at random (Skinner shows up ten minutes in and promptly disappears, literally and figuratively, for the next thirty minutes, perhaps to save on the cost of the effects budget). While others have pointed out some of the film's narrative absurdities, no amount of forewarning can prepare you for the level of incongruity on display--implausibilities will trouble you for days to come, while plot holes will emerge without even bothering with a close inspection.

Stephen Norrington doesn't so much direct as struggle to give the chaos some sort of form (and not very successfully at that). Whereas his previous comic book adaptation Blade had style and atomosphere to spare, League seems almost to have been drained of any, most of it taking place in drab, monotone settings that generally feature only various shades of concrete. The tiffs between Norrington and Connery are now the stuff of legend, and one can only wonder how the film might have fared in different hands (I would be willing to bet that an on-set documentary would be infinitely more interesting than the film itself!).

Perhaps the film's biggest problem is that it strands itself between the cleverness of the source material and the idiocy of a summer actioner--a mess that's sure to satisfy no one. It takes itself too seriously to be all that much fun, and is far too silly to be taken all that seriously. It's a great idea that doesn't translate, a perfect counterpoint to Pirates...and both provide the perfect cinematic illustrations of Anatole France's sentiment.

©2003 Ed Owens
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