The Chris Hill Festival -- The Time Has Come, the Walrus Said, to Talk of Many Things...

Yesterday David, James, Eileen, and I saw Pirates of the Caribbean at the Chase Park. There was no one playing the organ in front of the theater before the movie, unfortunately, but the film turned out to be much better than I expected.

This story actually begins a few years back, when some bright Disney executive (or, more likely, underpaid intern) had a thought: "We can't make rides out of any of our movies anymore, since they all suck, so we should start making movies out of our rides." There was hearty laughter around the table, until everyone realized that Disney's animated features no longer had the broad appeal that they once had (see: Treasure Planet) and they were quickly losing the animation market to Pixar.

Thus, a complete disaster was born: Country Bears. But despite this initial setback, the Disney team stayed its course and came out with Theme Park Ride The Movie Par 2: Pirates of the Caribbean.

The good news is that Pirates is actually a good movie with good actors and a (mostly) good plot. However, this is also bad news, since Disney will misinterpret the success as meaning that any old thrown-together idea from a ride will be a great movie, as is evident in the trailer for The Haunted Mansion starring Eddie Murphy.

But back to Pirates of the Caribbean, this movie works because it has the three essentials for any successful movie: Pirates with funny accents, a hot girl, and a monkey. If every movie had these basic ingredients, we would never have to sit through 2 hour train wrecks like Moulin Rouge.

My one quibble with the film is the ending, which has plot holes big enough to drive a British schooner through.

***WARNING: SPOILERS! If you haven't seen the movie yet, gouge out your eyes before scrolling downward***

For upwards of 2 hours and 15 minutes, the British Commodore chases after Captain Johnny Depp and attempts to kill him. In fact, mere minutes before the movie ends, Captain Depp is on the gallows about to be hanged. He once again manages to escape by jumping off a cliff into the ocean, but instead of, say, shooting at him, getting in a boat and rowing after him, or making any effort to capture him, Commodore British Guy just stands there and basically says "eh, let him go". Keep in mind this is someone consumed by rage against pirates, Captain Johnny in particular, for pretty much the entire movie.

Then, to top it all off, Commodore British Guy (it wasn't a very good day for him, apparently) had finally tricked Lady Hot Girl into marrying him (I'm not too good at character names, as you can tell). He spent the whole movie trying to convince her to marry him, but then Sir Main Character proclaims his love for her and the Commodore basically says "eh, go ahead and take her".

I know Disney movies are supposed to have happy endings, but characters are also supposed to have motivations for their actions. Couldn't they have conveniently had the Commodore get killed by the Evil Immortal Pirates Who Never Kill Important Characters? Or fall off the boat and drown? Or get eaten by sharks? Something? Anything besides lose all the pompous pride that they spent 2 hours drilling into our heads that he had?

But besides that, I highly recommend this movie and give it nine thumbs up. This almost makes up for the sheer horridness that was Country Bears and will be The Haunted Mansion.

When I was watching the preview for The Haunted Mansion, I leaned over to Sara and asked, "What's next? 'It's a Small World After All'??!!" Rachel laughed right out loud. Luckily, it's the Chase, and they so all they did was stick their noses up even higher. Haha, j/k. I like the Chase. Nice and small and not Esquire.

When a movie combines Disney, Jerry Bruckheimer, and the words "based on the theme park attraction," I have every reason to be worried. But the movie was surprisingly not that bad, probably because it never took itself too seriously. The monkey and the talking parrot (that quoted the ride!) were cool. Speaking of which, my biggest disappointment with the movie was the omission of the best quote from the ride (and any Disney ride for that matter): "We want the redhead! We want the redhead!"
And I think a movie based on "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" would be hilarious, if only for the fact that we all end up in hell at the end.


	The Time Has Come, the Walrus Said, to Talk of Many Things...
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