Friday, February 11, 2011

Weekend Rental Review: Pirates 2, Inception

Here goes another movie rental blitz.  This time, we watched 2 movies: Inception, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.



Inception was as much fun to watch a second time at home as it was to see the first time in the theater.  I had the English captions on just so I could better understand what was being said.  That actually helped, and the movie made a little more sense ... well, kind of.

The movie is known to have different interpretations as to what really happened.  Since I intend for this to be a "before you watch" review, I'm not going to discuss any of the prevailing theories.  But I can say that I'm convinced that no one theory consistently fits the movie itself, as there as some fundamental flaws in the science and the rules Nolan attempted to establish.

In other words, sit back and relax.  Make of the movie whatever you want to make of it.  You're probably right, as long as you don't discuss what you think with other Inception freakazoids.

This is a movie I wouldn't mind watching over and over again.  It's easy enough for most anyone to understand, yet complicated enough to get the brain moving.  Plus, it has some fun action and some breathtaking scenes.

Dom Cobb is a thought thief.  He goes into people's minds when they're asleep and extracts information.  This becomes a challenge when the dreamer is trained to counterattack such intrusions.

The movie is a little slow to get to the real action, but once it gets there, it's worth the wait.

Once you've seen the movie, you may enjoy the following clips.  The first shows how one animator believes the movie should have ended.  (The whole series of movie endings is hilarious!)  I like this particular rendition, because it points out some of those fundamental flaws I mentioned above.  (It's just a movie!)  Oh, and if I didn't say this already - don't watch until after you've watched the real thing.



And here's another cool clip to watch if you've already seen the movie.  You'll appreciate it once you click on it.  Note how the timing doesn't work out just quite right...





Next comes Pirates of the Caribbean 2.  This was my second time watching the movie - both times watching a DVD rental.  I'm a little embarrassed to say that both times I found myself snoozing off.  There's something about Bruckheimer movies that do that to me.  They're usually full of action.  They're usually long.  They usually have some kind of plot that's impossible to remember beyond a week.  And they're usually long.

Pirates 2 is a fun continuation of Pirates 1.  As I reported last week, the first movie had a lot more murdering than I remembered.  I had also forgotten how gross the second movie is.  I happen to like gross sometimes.  It's really fun to say "Ewwww!" when something really over-the-top happens.

In other words, I think my boys enjoyed it more than my girls.

Pirates 2 is the movie in the middle of a trilogy.  So just like in The Empire Strikes Back, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Matrix Reloaded, and Back to the Future Part II, you should expect the typical middle movie ending where everything's in dire straits.  Some big reveal will happen and set the stage for movie #3.  The world will be all messed up, and you will have to wait till Part 3 for anything to get resolved.

Isn't that the truth?  In all five of these series (except for Lord of the Rings), the first movie was made as a standalone.  Then a couple of years later (after gauging the success of the first movie), the second movie was made with knowledge that a third movie would be coming in the near future.  It's little wonder that each movie ends in a big cliffhanger.

Despite the long-ness, and the impossible to remember plot, and the unresolved endings, and the long-ness; it's still a fun movie to watch.  Johnny Depp always gives a fun to watch performance, no matter the character.  It must be something in his eyes!

Finally, for those of you who have already seen the first two movies, you can watch this spoiler "how it should have ended" rendition:

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