Pirates, special effects, etc

Last weekend I saw the shorts for the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which looks very spectacular indeed.

I liked the first one (although yes, it could have been shorter) but had missed the second.

Last night I watched the second one (Dead Man's Chest) on DVD and plasma. Again, a bit too long, but really hard to dislike. The scripts are quite witty and imaginative, the acting is all pitched at just the right level for this kind of film, and the central character of Jack Sparrow is a great creation. (I would agree, though, that the plots are a bit too complicated for their own good.)

But the thing that keeps impressing most about the films is their absolutely exquisite look. They're expensive movies to make, but all the money is up there on the screen, with ravishing locales and extremely photogenic pirate ships, and some amazing costumes and creatures.

The second instalment is particularly big on the special effects, and while I was watching, it struck me how I have become underwhelmed by computer generated stuff in some movies, but not others. For example, I agreed wholeheartedly with the Village Voice's critic when he called George Lucas' style in the last 3 Star Wars movies "baroque nerdism". I also never feel impressed by any movie where armies of thousands are shown swarming likes ants across a field (think Lord of the Rings, but also "Troy".)

It's actually kind of difficult to explain why some special effects leave me cold, and other's don't. I mean, it's clearly the case that a giant Kraken attacking a pirate ship is not real; yet to me it looked cool and convincing. But a shot were a hundred people are made to look like 10,000, or hundreds of little spaceships are zooming around big ones: well that just looks too easy now.

I think it just has something to do with an effect blending in with an already spectacular background, rather than it being clear that all of the background has been created in a computer. (Maybe that still doesn't explain why I don't like the ant armies of LOTR.) Also, in the shorts for the last Pirate instalment, there are many shots of ships swirling around a giant whirlpool of water which looked cool to me, but it may be that the entire thing is fake; I don't know, and (more importantly) I don't care.

For whatever reason, I get much pleasure from watching the Pirates movies effects, which truly are very seamless and natural looking, and will probably go see "At World's End" at the cinema.