About Time (2013)

I’m about to say something extremely significant, and for its significance to hit you like it ought, please keep in mind that Iron Man 3, Man of Steel, and Gravity all came out this year; each of them received a rather glowing review from yours truly.

Having said that, About Time is very nearly (if not entirely) my favorite movie of the year – a beautiful moving comedy that yanks at those heartstrings without losing sight of its own unique sense of humor.

On his 21st birthday, Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) receives some shocking news from his father (Bill Nighy) – the men in the family can travel through time.  After realizing it’s not a practical joke, Tim moves to London to live with depressed playwright Harry (Tom Hollander) and falls in love with Mary (Rachel McAdams) in a plot that is making me weepy just to think about it.

Truly, I cannot do justice in words to just how hard “right in the feels” this movie hit me.  About Time is a story so well told that it achieves greatness by virtue of its innocuous sincerity.  I’m often accused (sometimes by myself) of taking films too cerebrally, of a chronic inability to surrender to being moved by a film, but I can safely point to About Time as the evidence that proves I can still be swept wholly and completely away by the right film.

About Time is that film, offered as a litmus test for true empathetic humanity.  Aside from the obligatory remark of how refreshing it is to see an original, self-contained film that does everything right without gambling on a franchise, About Time handles characterization with a pitch-perfect blend of spot-on casting (especially with the avuncular ethos of Bill Nighy) and brilliant writing from director/writer Richard Curtis, who already won hearts with Love Actually.  Rather than being didactically instructed which characters to care about, About Time allows us to come to love Tim, Mary, and Dad (and even curmudgeonly Harry) as though we really knew them.  Gleeson distills the brand of endearingly awkward into a compelling performance, McAdams is as stunningly lovable as always, and Nighy is the force of nature that is “Bill Nighy” at his best – paternal, charming, and witty.

The performances are all top-notch (what else would we expect from a predominantly British cast?), but what’s truly remarkable is the plotting of the film, which Curtis’s screenplay unfolds without the typical show-off flourishes of most time travel narratives.  Instead of wowing us with sleight of hand, Curtis opts for an exploration of the basic human condition – the search for the meaning of life in finding the love of your life – that just so happens to include time travel.  As a result, the real surprises of the film come not from “wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff” (as The Doctor so snappily put it) but from smart scripting, as when the sideplot involving Tim’s sister develops in the background until its significance becomes foregrounded in a way that’s both surprising and (in hindsight) obvious.  Throughout it all, nothing is wasted, no scene goes by without deepening the characters or furthering the plot.

The greatest surprise, the most fantastic triumph of About Time comes from the astounding emotional resonance the film carries without resorting to the saccharine tropes we might expect from a romantic comedy.  Instead, we get moments of powerful devotion, assisted by the touching chemistry between Gleeson and McAdams, and a brutally slow-burn approach to making the audience cry.  I saw the film with a mostly full house, and the sniffles could be heard beginning an hour from the end; my eyes were on a perma-misty setting I didn’t know I had until the waterworks turned on all the way about twenty minutes to the end, at a point which I could identify precisely if it didn’t spoil one of the most touching scenes in the film.  Suffice it to say that About Time is the film that would move even the stonyhearted Pharaoh to tears – it certainly got me.

With the onslaught of Oscarbait movies coming this month (some of which will probably be very good), I’m holding onto About Time as the movie that moved me the most, which left me physically enervated but emotionally rejuvenated.  Even in a year filled with successful superhero outings like Man of Steel and works of breathtaking artistry like Gravity, About Time has moved into that place in my heart for movies that resonate so profoundly with everything I believe about the world – a movie to which I can point and say, “That’s a movie about the world I live in.”  For those of us looking for that emotionally perfect movie, a panacea for the hopeless romantic in all of us, it’s About Time.

About Time is rated R “for language and some sexual content.”  A topless photograph of Kate Moss is seen in a gallery exhibition, while a few sexual encounters (and their aftermaths) are depicted with no nudity (one does, however, include my new favorite seduction line, which involves the removal of new pajamas).  There is a smattering of strong profanities, and one character is hospitalized with a few cuts and bruises.  Ultimately, a rather soft R.

Top 10 Christmas Season Movies - #10-9

This week, in anticipation of the Christmas season, we at The Cinema King would like to bring you more than just your usual share of recommendations.  So we present to you:  this week’s Top 10 list.  More specifically “The Top 10 Christmas Season Movies.”  Rather than fill the list with “obvious” choices of Christmas-y movies, there are a few “alternative” choices on the list – the overarching determining criterion is whether or not this is a movie that I will watch beginning to end, especially during (but not limited to) the Christmas season.

#10 – Love Actually (2003)
While I confess I’ve only seen this movie once, about five years ago, I can safely say that not a Christmas goes by that I don’t think about Love Actually.  It’s probably because of the sweet-as-sugar finale in which Liam Neeson’s son gets to perform “All I Want for Christmas Is You” onstage with the lady of his affections.  But the holiday spirit is in the air throughout this movie, which has one of the best ensemble British casts this side of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  You’ve got Alan Rickman unsuccessfully navigating office politics vis-à-vis Christmas gifts, a snowy evening in which Andrew Lincoln uses cue cards to profess his love for Keira Knightley, and Rowan Atkinson as the walking embodiment of the Christmas spirit.  Then of course there’s Bill Nighy, whose turn as an aging pop star gives some of the best laughs of the film, especially as he tries to shoehorn Christmas into The Troggs’ “Love Is All Around” before attending Elton John’s holiday party.  It’s a year-round affair for how romantic it is, but it’s especially Christmas-worthy.

 #9 – Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
You can’t go wrong with Robert Downey, Jr., especially if he’s dodging snowfall and self-absorbed supermodels with reindeer antler headbands in a hardboiled detective film that allows him the freedom to run wild at his most antic.  This is a fantastic if underappreciated movie that pairs RDJ with Val Kilmer, who plays an irrepressible private investigator named Gay Perry.  The script and direction by Shane Black are both smart, and holiday film fans are in for a treat when they see how irreverent it is, quite unlike any other Christmas film.  For example, the film begins with RDJ acquiring Christmas gifts for his son – the catch is, he’s shoplifting them.  You won’t see that on TCM this year.  The clearest indicator of the film’s Christmas setting, though, is the Santa Claus costume worn by Harmony Lane (played by Michelle Monaghan) in several key scenes, including one where a seduction attempt goes awry when RDJ deduces a key clue.  I highly recommend Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, even if there’s no mistletoe over your television.

Come back tomorrow for #8-7!

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012)

When I say that The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (affectionately dubbed “Old People in India” by yours truly) is the anti-Avengers, I mean that in a good way, honestly.  Everything that The Avengers is, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is not, and vice versa.  None of this is to the film’s detriment, however, because there’s no reason the two films can’t come out the same weekend at the box office – and no reason I can’t enjoy both.

Director John Madden (of Shakespeare in Love, some of whose alums appear here) guides a cast of every elder British thespian (save Peter O’Toole, who was considered and whose absence here is a loss for us all) in a story of retirees who are misled by a garrulous advertisement for a retirement home “for the elderly and beautiful” owned and operated by the young Dev Patel (known to American audiences from Slumdog Millionaire).

Judi Dench is Evelyn, a blogger and young soul making the most of her experience; Tom Wilkinson is Graham, a former judge who grew up in India and has returned to seek out a former flame; Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton (“Harriet Jones, MP”) are the married couple Douglas and Jean, at odds about their future prospects and in conflict over Douglas’s perennial optimism; and Maggie Smith is the scene-stealing Muriel, a crotchety and xenophobic (but, in the classic British tradition, eminently endearing) candidate for a hip replacement.

The stakes are not high here; there’s no world to save or, for the most part, character flaws to overcome (though Wilton and Smith do excellent work rendering their characters as, at best, difficult to love).  There are no superpowers or flamboyant costumes.  Nothing blows up.  So how does The Cinema King, who gave The Avengers such a rave review, like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel?

Surprisingly, for the same reason I enjoyed The Avengers – a fun (but still emotionally compelling) story populated by entertaining characters portrayed by actors at the top of their game.  The obvious draw here likely isn’t the fish-out-of-water story (the trailers never touted that it was adapted from a book by Deborah Moggach) nor the exotic scenery.  Instead, the main attraction is the all-star cast of Britain’s most talented, all of whom bring their A-game to the table.  It’d be folly simply to catalog the actors and laud them individually, but their skills bear highlighting. 

Dench is charming and grandmotherly, as always, the kind of woman with whom you’d like to vacation.  Wilkinson handles his plotline with his trademark staid countenance, loosening up once in a while when he realizes retirement isn’t all serious business.  While Smith is more entertaining than one might expect from this movie – I had no idea her character was going to be so racist until her first scene – she might bring a tear to your eye as she begins to bond with one of the “untouchables.”  And Nighy and Wilton have perhaps the hardest job of all, Nighy repressing his natural charm to portray a man browbeaten by Wilton, who’s unwontedly shrewish and tasked with being the only unlikeable character in the piece. 

Even Patel, whose work in Slumdog Millionaire didn’t knock me out the way it did every other major film critic in the world, has fun here, resisting the apparent urge to pigeonhole by performing the stereotypical Indian figure (everything is “most beautiful” or “of the highest honor” and “we have a saying in India”), but when he’s among family and friends, he’s perfectly normal and speaks like everyone else in the film.  It’s a subtle distinction, but one which is much needed in a film which could very easily fall into the “empire coming back” trope.

All told, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a satisfying film with a gifted cast who could redeem even an episode of Jersey Shore by ethos alone.  While it’s one of the quieter movies you’ll see all year, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a perfect counterpoint to the high-octane action of the traditional summer blockbuster.

If nothing else, you’ll be calling your travel agent asking if Judi Dench is free for a weekend in New Delhi.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is rated PG-13 “for sexual content and language.”  The UK's stock character of the libidinous old man accompanies our crew, attempting to meet ladies left and right, jesting all the while about it; additionally, the sexual relationship of the hotel’s owner with his girlfriend becomes the topic of discussion several times.  There’s one F-bomb and a few remarks which I suspect are more scandalous for a British audience than for us Yanks.

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

This review has probably been a long time coming. Edgar Wright's first filmic collaboration with Simon Pegg, Shaun of the Dead has been referred to more times on this blog, I would estimate, than any other non-reviewed film herein. Well, no more. Here below, for your reading pleasure, is a treatise on why I love Shaun of the Dead.

In a film that calls itself "the first rom-zom-com" (romantic zombie comedy), Pegg stars as the titular Shaun, who's grappling with a lackluster job as an electronics salesman and a precarious relationship with girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield), who wants more out of life than nights out at local pub The Winchester with Shaun's coarse roommate Ed (Nick Frost). Then zombies attack, and Shaun is forced to deal with his possibly-infected stepfather Phil (Bill Nighy) while attempting to win Liz back amid a mob scene of bite-happy undead.

It's no secret to loyal readers of this blog that I'm absolutely mad about Shaun of the Dead - in an all-encompassing delirious love sense of the word (appropriately, the British definition). The film remains Edgar Wright's finest hour (or hour-forty, to be precise), rambunctiously entertaining and unflinchingly satirical without ever becoming distractingly parodical (I'm looking at you, "Reference Movie" crowd). Blame the airtight screenplay by Wright and Pegg, which teases zombie film conventions while foreshadowing its own plot growth. The script's greatest virtue, though, is its repetition of memorable dialogue and eye-popping (sometimes literally) visual gags that get funnier each time they're executed.

The performances are also credible, with the players doing their parts without relying on comedy crutches like mugging or pandering. Because the cast takes itself seriously while simultaneously recognizing the absurdity of their situation (the epitome of this being Shaun's heated exclamation, "Oh, give us a f---ing break!" as a second wave of zombies encroaches on his position), the comedy is played for more than just a knowing chuckle. Instead, we're treated to great rolling-in-the-aisles fits of laughter which comes not in small doses but in almost every scene. Pegg leads the cast, but it's Frost who will elicit the most laughs from filmgoers, with his gruff yet endearing portrayal of the unpolished Ed; if nothing else, his impression of "Clyde" (it'd be spoiling to tell who Clyde is) will get a few giddy giggles. Even Bill Nighy takes his droll self and drags it out into a plausible caricature of the unlikeable survivor with a heart of gold.

Where the film really succeeds, though, is in its childlike enthusiasm for its subject matter and the gleefully chaotic way in which it plays out, non sequitur humor amplifying the already farcically absurd nature of the film. Who else would think that Queen fits perfectly with a zombie invasion? (Spoiler: it does.) Where else would ice cream and smoking be priorities while surviving a zombie attack? (Spoiler: only in Ed's mind.) And where else would you find a zombie invasion film where the invasion itself happens off-screen and is only a MacGuffin around which the characters can chase each other?

I'm inclined to say that Shaun of the Dead is my favorite zombie movie ever (sorry, Zombieland, but it takes more than a Twinkie to win my heart), and I'm even more ready to claim that it's one of the better films overall made in the last ten years. It's certainly one of the most entertaining.
Shaun of the Dead is rated "R for zombie violence/gore and language." The zombies themselves are grotesque enough, but there are bludgeonings and arterial sprays all over the film, prompting the unforgettable one-liner, "You've got red on you." F-bombs and C-words abound, all played for laughs but nonetheless fantastically inappropriate.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)

Welcome to Wednesday 2, the final day of Depp Week. It's been an amazing journey, a real tour de force through the recent work of one of the greatest living actors, and I'm happy to have shared the journey with you.

But, in the words of many a pirate, you may not survive to pass this way again, and these be the last friendly words you hear. Meaning: The following review unavoidably contains spoilers for Dead Man's Chest, as At World's End picks up right after the cliffhanger ending that preceded it. (Oh, hell; the picture kind of gives away one surprise.) So, for those uninitiated who haven't seen Dead Man's Chest but want to know more qualitatively about At World's End, let me say this for it: At World's End is my favorite of the Pirates trilogy, a restoration of the thematic balance that made The Curse of the Black Pearl so appealing which also maintains the "go bigger" attitude of Dead Man's Chest. It's also just plain fun, escapism which the increasingly heavy Hollywood offerings so desperately need to bust up the monotony.

With Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) trapped in Davy Jones's locker after his encounter with the kraken, his former nemesis Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) - himself back from the dead - mounts a rescue effort with Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley). As if rescuing Jack from the land of the dead weren't hard enough, the pirate world must contend with the ever-tightening grip of Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander) and the East India Trading Company, which now controls the heart of Davy Jones (Bill Nighy).

Now this is my favorite of the Pirates films, but it's also unique because it's tonally very different from the first two films; perhaps, then, that's my main gravitation to it. Johnny Depp doesn't appear for more than half an hour into the film, allowing the movie to build up steam and firmly establish the necessity of his character to return. In some ways, this feels like a response to the critical backlash against Dead Man's Chest, as many characters run around in this film invoking the necessity of getting things back to the way they were. This film is darker - it opens with a small boy ascending the steps to the scaffold, and several very important characters are killed, brutally, on-screen - and consequently it feels more like the first than the second film, which you'll recall I critiqued for being too funny. Here the tone is one of urgent action punctuated by moments of levity (as when the crew sails over a waterfall and transports the audience, albeit briefly, to the Disneyland attraction that spawned the franchise), a return to form and a more fulfilling moviegoing experience. There are no scenes of audacious slapstick, but there are plenty of moments of entertaining comedy to keep you smiling throughout.

And where Dead Man's Chest did more of the same as far as performances go, At World's End dials it up for almost every main character. Now Jack Sparrow has a form of split-personality disorder, with "multiple Jacks" on his shoulders and in his hair, and Depp does a marvelous job at imbuing life into all the different Jacks we see on screen (at least twenty). Will has a renewed sense of purpose, and Bloom shoulders the responsibility with a grim but resigned countenance the whole way through. With a rousing speech on the nature of freedom, Elizabeth finally makes her decision between citizen and pirate, and it's a turn that feels completely natural in Knightley's hands. And it's a delight to see Rush again, who nuances his character's malicious nature by adding in a note of reformation and making it more palatable to root for the character who had previously been the villain. And Nighy continues to impress, even underneath all that CGI, by conveying through his words the anguish Davy Jones feels as a consequence of his betrayals at the hands of his lover and Cutler Beckett. Chow Yun-Fat joins the cast as Sao Feng, pirate lord of Singapore; though his character is done in broad strokes that might offend the PC crowd, Yun-Fat does an immersive job with the character, and there's a sense that all pirates are in effect stereotypes, somewhat legitimizing the Fu Manchu-esque nature of the character. And it'd be remiss of me if I didn't note that Keith Richards puts in an appearance as code-keeper Captain Teague, who shares a vitally important scene with Jack Sparrow.

The standout feature in At World's End, though, is an extended battle sequence which runs approximately forty minutes long and features the Black Pearl fighting the Flying Dutchman in the midst of a maelstrom. For most of the film, we're told that the pirates will have to face a last stand against Beckett's armada, and the subsequent battle that ensues more than lives up to the expectations raised by the rest of the film. Director Gore Verbinski (who, sadly, won't be returning for On Stranger Tides) does a masterful job of coordinating the action and keeping the action moving - even tossing an impromptu wedding into the mix. Hans Zimmer, too, is at his finest here, crafting an instrumental suite that runs for pretty much the whole length of the battle and integrates all the important themes (Jack's, Davy Jones's, Barbossa's, the love theme) from the trilogy in an expertly and elaborately written piece that you'll be humming for days. It's the kind of action sequence you can appreciate even out of context; a forty-minute combat sequence never hurt anyone, especially when it's as well-executed as this one is.

And the film brings to a satisfying conclusion the plotlines begun in the first film while still leaving open the possibility for a fourth film. The ending is remarkable in that it's sort of cliffhanger-ish, but at the same time it's the only way for these characters to end up; Will and Elizabeth are still together, despite a few obstacles, and Jack and Barbossa are still deadlocked in combat over the ownership of the Black Pearl and future treasure on the horizon. It's an immensely satisfying ending, one that validates the almost nine hours it takes to watch this epic sprawling trilogy unfold. Even taken on its own, though, At World's End is positively divine, an abundantly enjoyable flourish of a film.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is, like its predecessors, rated PG-13 "for intense sequences of action/adventure violence and some frightening images." In terms of content, there's not much different from the previous two installments, although the tone is much darker, and there's a pervading sense of danger that the more whimsical first two films lacked.

Well, folks, that's the end of Depp Week. It's been a marvelous journey, and I'm very curious to hear your thoughts on the whole affair. Would you be interested in seeing another themed week on The Cinema King (perhaps one that isn't gloriously gushing of its star)?

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)

Welcome back to the only week with two Tuesdays in it - Depp Week. Right now we're going to set sail into the penultimate entry on the docket, the second installment of director Gore Verbinski's Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy.

Dead Man's Chest picks up a little bit after The Curse of the Black Pearl, with the wedding of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) disrupted by the arrival of the East India Trading Company's villainous representative Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander). Beckett detains Will and Elizabeth for assisting pirate Captain Jack Sparrow in the last film but later separately dispatches them to retrieve Jack's compass. But Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) has bigger problems; the tentacled Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) holds a claim to Captain Jack's soul, owed to Davy Jones for 13 years as captain of the Black Pearl. With the land controlled by the EITC and the seas manned by Davy Jones, Jack Sparrow faces mounting challenges and learns, like Neil Gaiman's Sandman, that he must change (meaning confront his problems) or die.

I think that Dead Man's Chest is the most polarizing of the Pirates films; moviegoers are divided almost exclusively between those who love it and those who hate it. But there's room for a more honest appraisal, one (which I'll offer here) that gives credit to the film's strengths but acknowledges the fact that Dead Man's Chest is not perfect - at least, not in the sense that The Curse of the Black Pearl was.

Let's start with the bad news first. The bad news is that, as far as middle entries in trilogies go, Dead Man's Chest is no Empire Strikes Back. (Which is, I concede, a bit like criticizing water for not being cranberry juice.) Perhaps the worst thing that I can say about Dead Man's Chest is that it doesn't stand on its own very well. As a sequel, one can hardly criticize it for not restating a lot of the plot elements that were developed in the first movie - the relationship between Will and Elizabeth, the character of Jack Sparrow, the role of Weatherby Swann (Jonathan Pryce) in all this - but as a second of three, it ought to end without moviegoers feeling obligated to attend the third film in the franchise. In that respect, then, Dead Man's Chest is more Matrix Reloaded than Empire Strikes Back in the sense that the two former movies end on a cliffhanger which leaves nothing resolved. (To be fair, Empire ends on a cliffhanger, too, but it's one that goes for emotional tethers rather than plot twists.) Here, Dead Man's Chest ends with a major character deceased, another character back from the dead, major emotional connections seemingly irreparably severed, and a bevy of new characters thrown at us with no ultimate resolution on their storylines - such that one feels a bit like an empty keg of rum at the end of the picture, adrift in a sea of plotlines that, we're promised, the third movie will resolve. (It does, fortunately.)

My other major grievance with Dead Man's Chest is that it is, at its most basic, simply a turned-up-to-11 version of The Curse of the Black Pearl. With the exception of Elizabeth (and perhaps wooden-eyed Ragetti, who evinces concern for his newly-mortal soul), no returning character (or new one, for that matter) gets much depth added; Jack is still his same capricious self, Will is still that charming novice swashbuckler, and that dog still has the keys in his mouth. Even the new villains aren't very nuanced, with a mirthless one-dimensional evil separating them from Geoffrey Rush's evil-but-still-fun Barbossa. (Note that this critique of the unsubtle villains is distinct from the praise, which I'll be offering below, of Hollander and Nighy. Stay tuned.) Of course, evil villains are all well and good - in fact, they're essential - but they're contrasted with the turned-up-to-11 tone of whimsy that the picture sets up; nothing truly bad, it suggests, can happen to the characters as long as they keep us laughing. Consequently, when something truly bad does happen, it feels almost like a betrayal, a violation of some code somewhere. Then again, the first film did teach us that codes are "more like guidelines, anyway."

In sum, Dead Man's Chest doesn't engage in any emotional advancement of any character, but returning screenplayists Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio do a solid job of advancing the trilogy on a plot level, expanding the franchise's mythology and introducing a whole host of new characters - and doing so in a clear manner. As with the former film, there are complaints from the moviegoing public about a confusing aura around the film. But how the film could confound anyone is beyond me. Lunkheaded comic relief Pintel and Ragetti fill in for Navymen Murtogg and Mullroy as far as summarizing important action to each other and to the audience, and Naomie Harris joins the cast as Tia Dalma, a voodoo practitioner whose only purpose in this film, it seems, is to provide exposition on Davy Jones and the plight of Jack Sparrow. (Fortunately, she's given more to do in the final installment of the trilogy.) Again, there are many competing agendas here, but if you don't go out for a popcorn refill you should be fine. The script also does an outstanding job at building on what the first film introduces; throwaway elements like Jack's compass and his brief line "And then they made me their chief" from the first film get new meaning, making for a more comprehensive filmgoing experience. Most notably, though, Bootstrap Bill makes an appearance, portrayed by Stellan Skarsgard; if you noticed the plot hole of how the first film claimed that Bootstrap, cursed by the Aztec gold, could have drowned, the film addresses that.

And director Gore Verbinski does a firstrate job of topping a lot of the action sequences in the first film by kicking it up to 11 with swordfights on top of a spinning water wheel, a monstrous kraken attack, and a delightful re-introduction to Captain Jack Sparrow. Verbinski again keeps that sense of moving forward with sweeping shots of sailing ships and (doubtless) a little help from Hans Zimmer, who pens what might be his best film score to date in terms of listenability outside of the context of the film.

Continuing the train of good news about Dead Man's Chest, all the performers are still doing very good work. Even if they're not called on to do much more, they're still doing a good job at what they'd previously done: Depp is audaciously immersive as ever, replete with a slightly improved accent (something closer to a drunken Brit than previously), Bloom is still his charming roguish self, and Knightley is still doing a deft job at straddling that line between pirate and proper citizen (and she's probably the prettiest here of the three). Of the new cast members, all of them step into their roles like a good pair of slacks. Harris is almost unrecognizable as the grungy obeah priestess, with her blackened teeth and Jamaican dialect creating a vividly believable new character. On the side of evil, Bill Nighy is utterly engrossing as Davy Jones, lending a Scottish accent and a series of facial and verbal tics that are so human that you'll probably forget that the character is almost entirely created with CGI effects (honestly, the effects are that good). And Tom Hollander is perhaps the best villain of the series, because he's so joylessly evil that he's instantly detestable; his overconfident and avaricious qualities are brilliantly portrayed by the diminutive Hollander, who evokes Napoleon and all the worst qualities of British imperialism.

I've given what might be a mixed review of Dead Man's Chest, but I want to close with the note that this film contains my absolutely favorite shot of the entire trilogy. It's a small scene, maybe one that won't even be noticed by many audience members, but it's a pivotal one - one that is perfectly directed by Gore Verbinski and one that Jack Davenport (playing ex-Commodore Norrington) pulls off with aplomb. It's a silent scene, with only Hans Zimmer's rousing score to fill our ears, but it uses visual language like a fluent speaker uses French; with shots of only a rowboat, a swordfight, and a few finely detailed expressions from Davenport. It's a scene that says nothing and yet says everything we need to know about what's going through Norrington's head at that particular moment. It's so aesthetically effective that it, too, gives me chills.

If you've made it all the way through this review, first of all congratulations. Second, I hope the disenchantment of the earlier paragraphs has worn off. Really, this is an enjoyable movie for those of us who enjoyed the first. But my disappointment registers only because from a sequel I often expect so much more. I enjoyed this because I enjoyed the first movie, but I wish that I could have enjoyed it regardless of the first; I suppose in the end I was looking for more than more of the same. But perhaps that's just a case of my expectations being too high, in which case this is an issue I'll have to self-examine. But if you liked the first film, certainly the second is just as good (but not better).
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is - like its predecessor - rated PG-13, this time for "intense sequences of adventure violence, including frightening images." As with the first, standard pirate swashbuckling occurs. Here, though, some creatures may be more frightening than previously; Davy Jones's crew are all monstrous amalgamations of men and sea creatures, and his kraken is genuinely fearsome with tentacles and sharp fangs. Watch out for an early sequence at an island prison, which is surprisingly gruesome as ravenous birds attack caged prisoners.

Keep a weathered eye on the horizon, mates, because Wednesday we'll close out Depp Week with a look at my favorite of the Pirates films - At World's End.