Showbits

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End comes out tonight — the third third so far this season (following Spider-Man 3 and Shrek 3). The trailer makes it look like a lot of fun, but it's obvious that it continues the plot of its predecessor, which I missed; as Showbits reader Gene D. commented on that one, "Cool monsters, fun set-piece scenes, but cruddy script/plot." Senseless fun can be, well, fun, but I'd prefer to be impressed with something a bit more substantial.

That's partly why I for so long avoided the first Pirates film: any movie that causes young girls to unreasonably swoon does not exactly come with a strong recommendation in my book. But I had it on good authority from other geeks that it was a good film regardless, so I finally gave it a shot. I'm glad I did, as it was not at all what I was expecting/fearing (a typical swashbuckling adventure). The film works thanks primarily to its sense of humor and atypical pirate protagonist, Jack Sparrow (whom I did not recognize as Johnny Depp until the credits rolled). His antics kept the mood light; I was almost sorry to see that the film earned a PG-13 rating. It did get a bit tiresome and predictable after awhile, though. Some good special effects were occasionally not just visual, but actually functional. There were a few plot holes I'm willing to overlook, but I did feel the film ran a bit longer than necessary; I was not expecting this tale to take 132+ minutes to tell.

It's hard to remember that this series is based on a tourist attraction, of all things… But for a geek like me, the scariest kind of pirate is that featured below:

… a SOFTWARE PIRATE!