So I was on iTunes today and I happened to notice an ad for the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. It said something about deleted scenes so I checked it out. This is when I found out that iTunes includes information from Rotten Tomatoes on the pages for a particular movie. I was unaware that Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides had a rating of 33%, with one of the reviewers calling it a turd.
I watched this movie this weekend...twice in fact...and this person suggested that I was doing the equivalent of staring at a toilet after having just deficated into it?
I will give you a disclaimer: I am a total PotC Fanboy, truly I am. I could show you a video of me dressed up like a pirate, imitating Captain Jack Sparrow to a degree in an attempt to show how excited I was for this movie. I'll be posting, very soon, a long review of the movie that I wrote after seeing it twice in theatres. The soundtracks are some of the most played music on my iPod. It's safe to say I'm going to defend this series to the end...I do the same for the Star Wars Prequels.
Yet, that's not what I'm doing here. I'm not here to rant about how this man had a different opinion from mine. I'm here to rant about how different that opinion was, while trying to avoid ranting about his opinion. I could see where someone might think differently from me...I felt something different about this movie too, and I still can't bring myself to say exactly what it is, no matter how many times I compare it to the older films. Jack was different, the plot was different, the action was different...but it didn't strike me as...awful. Something I've come to realize and may further expound on later is that this would make a good first movie...because that's how it is. It doesn't exactly feel like Pirates.
That's all besides the point though, especially since the previous Pirates movie, At World's End, got terrible reviews as well...as did Dead Man's Chest before it. It's almost like the critics refuse to go back on their word. The next movie MUST be worse than the last simply because it defies our judgment. I hath condemned this series and yet it returns like a beggar, what filth be this? Of course, it's certainly not just Pirates that gets this treatment. I've never seen any of the Transformers movies, but I do know they're possibly in a worse boat. How then, can you redeem a franchise?
On Stranger Tides pulled everything about its "failed" predecessor out. The bombast was thrown out, the old characters including the comic relief were eliminated, and more or less the status quo was set right back at zero. They cut back the time by over half an hour, and weaved a far less tangled web of subplots. If I recall correctly, those were some of the biggest complaints about the last movie. So, they get rid of them, they LISTEN to you, and yet you still find something wrong enough to call this new thing a failure?
Here's a test. You clear your mind. You watch the movie and if you find yourself entertained by something, you fail. If you're watching and something happens that you didn't think of before it happened, you fail. If this movie shows you something that you haven't seen up until this point, you fail. What I'm seeing is that good ideas are being taken for granted. The small moments are being forgotten. No one's thinking about these movies. I only am because I don't see that many movies...the ones I do see, however, I get to think a lot about, and maybe that's how I learn to appreciate them.
I think that every movie...yes, every single movie, even Trolls 2, even Twilight, even Transformers...has merit. Certainly, each one of those movies will have its fans. Certainly someone will have something good to say about it. More importantly, you can get something from pretty much every one of them even if you're not one of those people. Okay, so if my mom happens to be watching Twilight and I'm in the same room, I will no doubt be making snide remarks at every chance I get and I will continue to affirm that it is a series that does NOT deserve it's gigantic and avid fanbase. But will I admit I was entertained? Absolutely. Was I entertained just because I was thinking of ways to bash the logic and plot of the movie? Mostly, yeah. It's kind of like that one Berenstein Bears book where Papa tries to show his kids how to do things...he fails at each and every one of them, and then says "this is how NOT to do that." That's kind of how Twilight is for me.
In that, however, I notice that there's still alot of work that went into that movie. Twilight's got a very good concept (yknow the whole fairy tale things are real, vampires vs werewolves and forbidden love thing), and I would be lying to you if I couldn't pick out at least say...three things i like in each movie (For Eclipse, this'd be the soundtrack, the crystalline interiors of the vampires, and the idea that Bella, at one point saves her friend's life by encouraging him not to get himself killed...and that's not going with my shallow answer of saying Bryce Dallas Howard is a really hot ginger (though admittedly, she looks a lot like an ex girlfriend of mine)). I understand that the bad in this case, outweighs the good, but if it's between Twilight and watching a freshly taken dump lay at the bottom of a toilet...yeah, I'll have a much better time with Twilight. It just has more THOUGHT put into it that the poop. Yes, I just said that.
But back to Pirates, whose recent roasting was more astonishing than Twilight's. What Rotten Tomatoes' average rating tells me as that ALL the critics thought just about the same way: this film was cold, lifeless, boring, shitty and irrelevant. Irrelevant? What the hell does that even mean anyway? "I've never seen anything onscreen be so irrelevant." Irrelevant to what? Your life? Well, you're not a pirate. The movie itself? Well, I suppose if you're blind yeah. Maybe I've just come to realize a most ancient and true proverb: It can always get worse.
An example for you: The Star Wars Blu-Rays in which a NOOOOO has been added to a climactic scene in Return of the Jedi. This of course, is a rant in and of itself about people's ignorance (and a really really long rant at that), but suffice to say that it could have been worse. Jar Jar could have came in, put his arm around Darth Vader, his lover, and beat the ever loving hell out of Palpatine with a lollipop. Darth Vader could have said "You are the biggest asshole on the face of the galaxy and now I'm going to throw you down this shaft, bitch!" Trust me, it could be worse. One simple, cliched word does not ruin the integrity and suspense of a scene, much less three whole movies. "YEESSSSS" would have made a lot less sense.
Of course, that's not even the critics talking, but it shows kind of what I mean. This is why I've sort of started training myself to not read reviews of any kind, unless I know the reviewer has interests and/or views similar to mine. Honestly, those are the reviews I should be reading anyway. Why would you take the advice of someone who doesn't agree with you? That'd be like a gay man campaigning for Don't Ask Don't Tell (and yeah, Im sure there was at least ONE who did). If it's something I'm not fairly knowledgeable about, I'll read any review, yeah, but otherwise I like to avoid reviews at all costs. The thing that is of most value to you is going to see the damn movie. Then you have all the time in the world to think about it. Then you have your own review. It's kind of a bullshit job really, getting paid to write a review...especially as there aren't too many ways you can be more qualified than anyone else on the movie in question. If that's that case, everyone should listen to MY review of Pirates because I know a lot more about the series than Peter Travers or Ebert and Roeper or whatever, not to mention I don't have a limit on how long the review can be (mine ended up being like 5 pages).
Yet, despite that, reviews seem to be what write the history books. Sure, the new Pirates made almost a billion dollars, and I'm certain that Breaking Dawn will not be a total flop and be forgotten by humanity. It's so easy to say "well, just because it made a lot of money and the masses went to see it doesn't mean it was good." You know what else is easy to say, but a lot harder to have heard since I don't get paid anything and am not being published in a popular newspaper, magazine, or on the very page where you can purchase the reviewed thing in question? "well, just because you said it's a piece of shit doesn't mean it's actually a piece of shit."
More people put more hours into that movie than you did writing your review for it. Please consider this. The solution? Well, I actually have one this time. You publish two reviews, or have the one reviewer come up with at least a few good or potentially good things to say about the movie in question. Why can't these things appeal to everyone the way the movie itself will?
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