Summer Stinkers

So besides X3, what else sucked this summer? Well, as is traditional for the season, most of what's in theatres. I'm glad I don't see every "big movie" that comes out, or I'd probably be throwing stuff at the screen in disgust. Nevertheless, I did watch these stinkers.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
The first Pirates had the distinction of a ridiculously long title, which gave you a hint at the overstuffed contents. Luckily, Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush were around to save the day and steal scenes from the bland confection that was Keirlando. This time round the title gets shorter, but unfortunately the movie gets even more overblown, with the writers wanting to stuff in plot development after plot development after... you get the drift. It wants so desperately for you to have fun that it really becomes quite sad, kinda like watching your parents try to be cool. True, there were fun scenes, but they were few and far between, and for some reason everyone involved thought it'd be a good idea to have more of Keirlando. Wrong answer. We don't give a fuck. Just give us Johnny Depp cavorting for 120 minutes and we'll be happy, even if there's no plot. I'm dreading the final installment (Why does everything have to be a fucking trilogy these days? I blame Star Wars).


Nacho Libre
Nacho Libre sounded great in concept. Jack Black playing a Mexican wrestler who's really a priest (or something like that)? Fuckin'-A! Unfortunately, in the hands of Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess, he's really fucking boring. Sure, there are some chuckles here and there - how could you not? He's Jack Black after all. But he seems really subdued here. There are comedians that do small really well, like Steve Carell, where a little eyebrow raise can bring the house down. Jack Black is not one of them. His appeal lies in his largeness - he has to do it BIG. And when you try to restrain him, like Hess did here, it just doesn't work. I haven't seen Napoleon Dynamite, and after this, I really have no desire to, even though some of my friends swear it's the funniest thing since Play-Doh.


Lady in the Water
When I first read about the movie, I got the impression that it would be about a man who comes to realize that he's living in a children's fairy tale. While I suppose strictly speaking it's not entirely inaccurate, I thought this meant that he came to realize that he was a character in a book or story, and I was immediately interested in the concept of his growing self-awareness of his own fictional existence.

Unfortunately that was not the movie that was made. Pity; I think my misunderstanding of it would make a much better film.

What did get made though, was a movie that did not make very much sense at all. Suspense you got in bits and pieces, I guess, but sense was pretty much lacking. Exposition was put across in probably the clumsiest way I've seen in a good while, and characters didn't seem to have much purpose besides trotting on to say their line and trotting off again. I was especially annoyed by the Korean girl who looked about 10 years too old to play the college chick she was supposed to be.

One of the huge problems it had for me was that the mythology was entirely constructed and had no basis on any existing myths. Perhaps it might be more acceptable to people who have no idea about Asian culture and legends, but to spin something that wants desperately to be elaborate and then simply tack it on to a Korean old lady is sheer laziness. It's like if I said that all Americans have heard of a whistling baby who rides in on a tricycle and steals shed hair off the floor - it's not true, and it's really insulting. I simply did not buy this movie for one second.

Paul Giamatti is an actor I have huge respect for, and he tries his best with this material. It's really too bad, because I liked the first trailer for it a lot, but every subsequent trailer became worse and worse, until the movie came along and kinda shuffled to its watery grave.

I won't even start on M. Night Shyamalan's ego, because Tim does an excellent job of that.