Movie roundup, part three

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

The sound and the fury

Signifying nothing

Dead Man’s Chest is well made, with spectacular special effects and Johnny Depp obviously having oodles of fun as Captain Jack, but it goes nowhere with a plot that makes not a lick of sense. I found myself incredibly bored about halfway through.

It could have been good, but it has that annoying schizophrenic feel of most high-budget movies that desperately want to go dark and edgy but are afraid to lose their McDonald’s tie-ins.

Casino Royale

A desperately-needed reboot of the Bond franchise. Daniel Craig does an excellent job as a darker, grimmer Bond, and the movie is loaded with eye-wink references to the glory days of Sean Connery.

Does get a bit talky and slow toward the end, but all in all a rousing good ride. One of a very select few movies in recent years I watched twice.

Craig definitely gives Connery a run for his money as the ultimate Bond. Hopefully we’ll see more movies of this caliber in the series.

Battle Royale

The Netflix recommendation engine thought I’d enjoy this. It was horribly wrong.

Basically, Battle Royale is a non-stop parade of pointless sadistic mayhem. It may very well be that if you are intimate with Japanese culture all sorts of wonderful nuances and references appear. I wouldn’t know. And after losing an hour and a half to this dreck, I really don’t want to find out.

Apparently they made a sequel, so somebody must have liked it. I hope I never meet those people.