Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides vs. Priest (2011)

It was inevitable.  The summer movie season of 2011 has been a good one so far - "Fast Five", "Thor", "Bridesmaids".  But, just as good cannot exist without evil, awesome cannot exist without crap.  Today I bring you a double header of lazily-written halfhearted cinemayhem.  May the best movie win. . .

Aw, hell, they both suck.  To quote the ad campaign of "Alien vs Predator" - whoever wins, we lose. . .


Priest

Based on a popular Korean manga (graphic novel, a.k.a. comic book), "Priest" takes place in an alternate Earth where humanity has forever been at war with vampires, a race of blood drinking, sun-vulnerable beasts who have a queen and live in massive hives ("Alien", anyone).  The Catholic church has become the ruling body, and to combat the vampires they have created the Priests, warrior clerics who can kick vampire ass like there's no tomorrow.  They effectively put an end to the war, supposedly defeating the vampires, but with their services no longer needed, the Priests have unsuccessfully been reintegrated into everyday society.  Most of humanity, by the way, still live in giant walled cities controlled by the Catholic church, even though the vampire menace has long been destroyed.  Fishy, no?

After a teenage girl is abducted by a horde of vampires, Priest (Paul Bettany), the baddest of all the vampire killin' clergymen, bucks the orders of his superiors and sets off to find her.  Monsignor Orelas (Christopher Plummer) sends out other Priests to find and stop him.  And Black Hat (Karl Urban) is a mysterious bad guy who's dead-set on getting his revenge on the church.  I think.  Many things are unclear in this movie, and that's the problem.  Either it was a very underwritten script to begin with, or the filmmakers cut out lots of stuff.  Take the vampires, for example.  We know that sunlight kills them, and that they drink blood.  Do crosses hurt them?  Holy water?  That would explain why the Catholic church, out of all religious denominations, rules the world, wouldn't it?  But no mention is made of any other rules besides the sun thing and the blood thing.  Oh, there are vampire familiars as well.  And when they "turn" you, you become one of their species.  Black Hat (Spoiler Alert) is apparently the first human vampire, turned personally by the Queen herself, who we barely see in one shot and who is mentioned several times throughout the movie - and that's it, no more for the Queen.

Here's the problem I have with this movie - at the end of the movie, Monsignor Orelas, in regards to vampire/human relations, tells Priest, "You'll start a war!"  Priest responds with (in gruff Clint Eastwood voice), "The war has already begun."  Off into the cliched sunset, and into further adventures, he rides.  God that pisses me off.  The entire movie ends up being an ad for sequels, which I personally wouldn't mind - if the rest of the movie hadn't been so fucking muddled and dull.  Scott Charles Stewart is the director.  He also made last year's dull, muddled crapfest "Legion" which, like Priest, could have been a good movie in other hands.  It's all just so dang unsatisfactory.

Side characters show up, something interesting happens, then they disappear with no resolution.  There are three, count 'em, three main villains here:  Black Hat, who is completely underwritten (I have no idea why he's doing what he's doing - Revenge?  Why, exactly?), Monsignor Orelas, who shows up and sternly lectures our hero in two scenes, and the Queen, who gets paid a lot of lip service but does absolutely nothing onscreen.  And our heroes?  Priest, surprise, is dull.  I know, he's supposed to be a lone gunslinger, Man With No Name type, but Paul Bettany, while I think that he's a good actor, can't pull this one off.  His sidekick Hicks (Cam Gigandet), a badass gunslinger who has a romantic attachment to the missing girl, is a boring character played by a bad actor.  But he sure wears a cool-looking coat!  Maggie Q, as Priestess (one of the warrior Priests sent to find, um, Priest) is the only actor to come out of the movie looking good.  She gets to participate in the only good fight sequence (most of the action is, yes, dull) and gets to have a couple of good character moments as well.

This movie was supposed to be released last year, but was delayed so that it could be converted into 3-D.  How is the 3-D?  Decent quality, but a turd in 3-D is still a turd in 3-D.  At least the vampires look good.  The animation company that created them deserves praise - they're better actors than the flesh-and-blood cast!  The special effects, overall, are pretty well done.  And I can't believe that this movie got away with a PG-13.  There's a surprising amount of bloodletting, including a bad guy who gets ripped into bloody chunks in broad daylight, and a couple of F-bombs.  What makes this movie so privileged?  Is the MPAA a Catholic organization?

In the end, it could have been good.  However, when you create the first introduction to a fictional world, you need to firmly (and clearly) establish the "rules" and motivations, as well as provide a self-contained, satisfying storyline in itself.  In other words, while leaving a couple of storylines open for future tales is okay, don't skip over explanations of rules that you need for right now, expecting to explain them in the future.  But I don't think there will be any sequels, which makes this movie moot.  Moot, I tells ya!

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

The first movie, "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl", was a surprisingly entertaining fantasy adventure based on a Disney theme park attraction, with Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow emerging as the most iconic cinematic rogue since Han Solo.  The sequel, "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest", suffered from Middle Child Syndrome.  Since it was part 2 of a trilogy, it had trouble establishing it's own identity, but still had it's good moments.  I particularly thought the Kraken attack sequence was a cool scene.  "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" tried way too hard to be like an ocean-bound "Lord of the Rings", but ended up being too long and bloated.  However, it's also my favorite movie in the series so far.  I realize that I'm in the minority here, but here are my reasons:  A) It was the first time in the series that I gave a crap about the characters of Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) and Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), and I rather like the bittersweet way in which their storyline wraps up.  B) It has the best musical score of the series.  I love it!  C) It has some of my favorite sequences in all the "Pirate" movies - the Terry Gilliam-esque sequence in Davy Jones' Locker, the opening musical number (a Disney movie that opens with a kid getting hanged!), the death of the main villain, lots of great character moments, etc.

Now we come to the fourth movie.  "On Stranger Tides" is the beginning of a proposed new trilogy, centering on Capt. Jack Sparrow himself (Elizabeth Swann was the central character of the first trilogy).  This is a mistake.  Sparrow is the Han Solo character, not Luke Skywalker.  He has only one driving motivation - he wants the freedom of the open sea, and he doesn't have much room to grow as a character.  While he appears to be a doddering clown, in the end it turns out that he had it all figured out the whole time.  He's fun to watch, but not fulfilling.

Taking its inspiration from the novel by Tim Powers (coincidentally enough called "On Stranger Tides"), this movie follows several parties in the search for the Fountain of Youth.  The Spanish want it.  The English want it.  Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) now works as a merchant marine for them.  He also lost the Black Pearl, as well as one of his legs.  The evil Blackbeard (Ian McShane) wants it.  It turns out he just heard a prophecy that says a one legged man will kill him in 40 days, so, hey, why not go for the Fountain of Youth. 
His daughter Angelica (Penelope Cruz) wants to save the soul of her evil dad.  She's also the ex-gf of Jack Sparrow.  And what does Jack want?  Guess.  It's what he's been looking for this entire series (and sometimes gets).

Blackbeard knows voodoo and has zombie crew members.  And his ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, can come to life and snatch people up with it's riggings.  Did I mention that it has a giant flamethrower mounted in front as well?  Dumb.  Is there an explanation for all this?  Not really.

Honestly, this is a tough review.  I literally forget most of what happened in this movie the instant I left the theater.  Not because I have short-term memory problems, but because it's just so forgettable.  Only two scenes still stick in my mind.  There's a whole mermaid attack sequence that ain't half bad, and the scene where Capt. Barbossa explains how he lost his leg was pretty good.  Actually, that should have been the opening sequence of the movie!  How cool would that have been?

So here's the story.  Producer Jerry Bruckheimer hasn't produced a hit for Disney in years (his last one was the 3rd "Pirates" movie in 2007).  Last year he made two box office duds back-to-back: "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" (lame) and "The Sorceror's Apprentice" (okay), so he's desperate for a hit.  Hence the return to the "Pirates" well.  He's even managed to get most of the previous "Pirates" crew back together, except for director Gore Verbinski.  "On Stranger Tides" was directed by Rob Marshall, better known for the Oscar winning musical "Chicago".  Terrible choice.  Marshall is not very handy at action adventure.  The action scenes are limp and unoriginal, the pacing poops out constantly, the acting seems "stagey", the camerawork and editing a little clunky, the music forgettable, and the movie just feels cheap even though it had twice the budget of the first movie.  It's all so lifeless!  I get the feeling that they were trying to recapture the more down-to-earth pirate action of the first movie, but they failed badly.

Depp manages to bring a couple of great Sparrow moments to the table, but even he seems a little off his game.  Penelope Cruz is okay, but kind of generic.  Rush gets to sink his teeth into some good scenes (and his character comes out great at the end), but Ian McShane (Blackbeard), even though he tries very hard, is just too underdeveloped and underused to be a memorable villain.  Dame Judy Dench has a funny cameo, at least.  They also shoehorned in a side story of young love, for those who miss Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley.  This one occurs between a young missionary and a captured mermaid.  What happens to them in the end, well, I'm not sure exactly what happened.  I suspect they will be back in "Pirates 5".  Yeah, even though I'm disappointed with this one, I wouldn't mind if they tried again.  I believe that if you like a movie series enough that just because there's one bad entry, that doesn't mean it should end (or, God forbid, get friggin' rebooted, like "Spider-Man").  Just try to improve.  Please.  A less crappy script would be a great start.  Nonstop coincidences, plot holes, and uninspired set pieces are not good things.

And the 3-D doesn't help.  There are a couple of fun, in-your-face gags, but there are also some moments of low quality 3-D conversion, so, in the end, 3-D doesn't really matter here.

So there.  Two lame movies.  And now, to declare the winner.

Drum roll, please. . .

And the winner is. . .

Ah, Rutger Hauer.

Alright, I haven't seen this one yet.  But I want to!