Running Commentary: Innuendo off the port bow!

by: bamf 1 year, 3 months, 1 day, 12 hours, 57 minutes ago 2

Bamf here rematerializing from the void...

Running Commentary is a new segment that I am introducing today.  All reviews are in fact commentary of the viewer, but there are times when I will vier far off the normal course and discuss more than just cinematography and an actors performance.  Ill keep the definition gray for now, but past discussions like my piece on Armageddon or the never posted essay on 300 (came off a bit too jingoistic) will do better in this format then the traditional review.  Reading too much into it all?  Yes, thats why I’m here.

Keith Richards, our best representation of what Ted Kennedy’s liver would look like if you put it in tight leather pants (is there any other kind?), appears in a cameo bit as Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow’s father in Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At Worlds End.  Richards brought a fair bit of heat down on himself when New Musical Express reported his answer to this question, “What is the strangest thing you have ever tried to snort?”

“The strangest thing I’ve tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father.”

Disney, family company and responsible for about as many edits on its past animated features possibly more than Lucas has tampered with his Original Trilogy, for entirely different reasons mind you was quick to douse any non-existent fires so as to keep their pedigree image intact.  They claimed Richards was only kidding.  Righhhht... Later that week, a reporter asked the Disney spin artist if Mr. Richards would be doing any publicity for the upcoming feature, she answered simply—no.  I say non-existent fires because no one really cares if Richards did in fact have a bump of his father’s remains, and further more, no one would be surprised if he did.  The man is known for living that hard and fast lifestyle of Rock, so for Disney to be so up in arms to try and spin any such revelation is foolish and makes one ponder how they did not consider what they were getting with that full package from The Rolling Stones.  What is even stranger to me is that although Richards is known for his party life style, how any such news would be viewed as hurting his image is beyond me.  In contrast, consider Wild Boyz Chris Pontius and most certainly Steve-O, whose careers are actually helped by being arrested for drug possession or lude acts in nature.  Any company that accepts their endorsement has to know what they are attaching themselves to and perhaps even have a secret wish to see Mr. O pushed into the back of a police cruiser wearing their shirt, and their shoes.

Hurmmmm, think about that one for a minute.

I have not been a big fan of the Pirates saga, partly due to the fact that I have a romantic recollection of many summers’ trips as a youth visiting the actual Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disneyland so many years ago.  I detest the news that found me stating that elements of the film were now going to be incorporated into Walt Disney’s final contribution to his park.  I was even more disappointed that Disney’s original creation of Tom Sawyer’s Island was going to be changed into an extension of the Pirates attraction.  It’s sad that Walt’s gift to children is gone, though how many are really reading Sawyer anymore?

So objections aside, as a well-known Pirate saga detractor, I enjoyed part 3 whole-heartedly.  Bloated yes, at just under three hours I can not say that the over exposition might have been better saved for the next trilogy; I still liked it, despite the pain in my shifting legs.  As summer blockbusters go, action, comedy and a bit of romance is what the season is known for, and at times it does deliver, but then becomes lost in lore that even multiple viewings of the first two might not prepare the viewer for.  I have only seen the first two once, and really, being a Disney film, these are supposed to be for kids, or so the mouse house would have you believe.  Adults are accustomed to the innuendo found in Disney features that are gentle nods to an adult audience like Bo-peep asking Woody why he didn’t stop by last night, or a doe eyed Nala giving a come hitherto stare to a pubescent Simba.  These are innocent enough that children take it in stride, and years later they will suddenly recall upon re-watching.

“Ohhhhh, that’s what that meant!”

Pirates 3 is not so subtle with their innuendo.  In fact, I think the backlash on this film will certainly not be felt by box office results, but Disney is going to have many angry parents on their hands like when a High School Choir teacher makes her program an hour too long.  I sat between families with many children; the theater was full of this lot, and you could feel the room tighten up when Barbosa brandishes his steel balls, or when Elizabeth—Keira Knightley—the whore of the series (seriously, who didn’t she seduce or kiss?) gives young Turner—Orlando Bloom—a nod at the end to go all the way back to the Magic Kingdom before the sun sets. Parents with their younglings looked as uncomfortable as a Frat guy being told he has Herpes after an STD screening.  (With apologies to the fraternal brotherhoods out there, I lived amongst you and you are not having much sex anyway.) One small line that I found myself the only one laughing at was a passing comment towards two of Sparrows abandoned Harlots from his First Mate Gibbs, something to the effect of have you ever seen a sea turtle.  Perhaps the audience was worse for wear, and ready to leave, but I know circumcision humor when I hear it.

Sexual connotations aside, and given that this is PG-13 (ahem!), the opening scene is creepy when you get to take in a child being hanged.  By the way, stay past the credits and you will get a surprise, as well as a hanging curve that if you’re like me will lead you straight to IMDB to figure out just who exactly that kid is.  Slightly confusing say I. 

The story borrows from Empire Strikes Back, rips off The Godfather, and there is not one Hazaahh!! to be heard. I enjoyed it just the same.  But if Disney is so adamantly conscious of its corporate image, and are in fact making films for children, it could be argued that a film about Pirates, if to be done with any sort of edge can not lend itself to being that family friendly American Idol affair.  So given the doctoring they did just a few months prior, what were they really worried about?  Since Falwell is now gone, perhaps that moral majority will stay silent.  But for future journeys into this saga, I bet savvy parents are going to think twice before taking the young ones to another Captain Jack Sparrow adventure.

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