PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END by obi

The third installment to the tale of the swashbuckling corsair, Jack Sparrow, followed the story of Lord Cuttler Beckett's quest to purge all pirates and establish ultimate rule over the seas. With it, he has control over the heart of Davy Jones (from Part 2) which in turn gave him leverage to command his dreaded Flying Dutchman in a whim. Beckett's success was imminent (and so is the pirates' end) so the only solution left was to convene the Pirate Lords around the world and propose a joint attack against the formidable British fleet.

On this line, it became apparent that they will be needing help from the infamous Captain Sparrow so with unlikely aid from the Singaporean Pirate Lord Sao Feng, the former crew of the Black Pearl journeyed to the World's Edge to bring him back to life. The voyage was a success and along with it, they sailed back to the "real world" with Jack and the Black Pearl, itself. Insidious pacts and trades led to the unexpected rise of Elizabeth Swann as captain of the Singaporean fleet. She spearheaded the notion of a combined attack against Lord Beckett's fleet during the convocation of the Pirate Lords, where she was declared Pirate KING (yes, it was explicitly told she was a KING).

In the end, it was a standoff against the British Fleet plus the Flying Dutchman versus the allied pirate fleet. The Flying Dutchman and the Black Pearl sailed ahead of their armadas for the greatest naval mano a mano I've ever seen on a movie! The battle ended with Captain Sparrow opting to have Legolas destroy the heart of Davy Jones (killing Squidhead on the process) in order to protract his existence. However, this meant that Legolas (actually, Will Turner) will have to be the new Davy Jones and captain the Flying Dutchman. With it, the Dutchman and the Black Pearl annihilated the Endeavour - Lord Beckett's flagship.

Lord Beckett's death is the cheesiest naval death I've ever seen, on the other hand. Hahaha.

Let's not talk about CG's, special effects, props, costumes, and the whole production itself. They're all "WOW" *put lots of exclamation marks here* for the lack of words to describe it! I was pointing at the Kraken's tentacles to my bro telling him they (effects crew) thought of making it consistently float on the beach and put much details on the suction tubes even when the monster's scene on the film lasted what... 30 seconds?!? That's how they worked with the rest of the details and the effects were getting more and more awesome since the first Pirates film.

It's a very suitable ending for the "prologue movie" which is Pirates 2. I've immediately watched Pirates 1 as soon as I had the chance after I arrived from Sydney last year and I stand in my opinion that Pirates 2's storyline is nothing but a preparatory film for this sequel. Nothing interestingly more. Pirates 3 is as winding and long as Pirates 2 but "At World's End" is fast paced and easier to keep up with, at least. Ok, it still has those confusing sub-storylines: Calypso, Nine Pieces of Eight, Davy Jones's Love Story, the Pirate Lords. But, these has been inserted to the plot in a way that they din't become vague enough to follow unlike those introduced in Pirates 2 which were mostly just "pushed it" too much... to make the movie long(?) or look adventurous(?), who knows?

Johnny Depp's witty antics are still a hit but this time, I have to admit that he din't single-handedly carry the film. The story was guile enough to highlight the need of the other roles to shine on the film: Elizabeth Swann and her rise to power, Will Turner and his quest to save his father, Davy Jones and his unsettled business with Calypso, even Lord Beckett has his own shot to stardom as the ultimate antagonist. The plot this time din't revolve mainly on Captain Sparrow but it was participated evenly by the major characters. This, I dig since the stars selected for the major roles were worth the exposure anyway. I find Chow Yun-Fat a little lacking though but I have this feeling that I might have just thought of that because I was used to see him in kung-fu moves and stunts that din't require him to actually "act" that much. Haha.

This movie like Pirates 2 is still not recommended to be watched if you haven't seen the prequels. It was chock-full of its own mythology that it will make you just keep on bugging your seatmate for info (and prolly annoy him/her in the process). Just think of it as this: it's not your typical sit-back-enjoy-the-adventure flicks we commonly see on the likes of Waterworld or The Island. Plot lines here are branching (if not just "popping" out of something) everywhere and it's up to the moviegoers to have a grasp of these and establish a coherent path to understand everything. Ang saya noh?

Six out of ten gulaman.

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SPIDER-MAN 3 by obi

Spiderman is back and this time he's prepared to snatch his Mary Jane for a wedding proposal. Everything started well as Peter Parker continued his regular stints as a photographer for the Daily Bugle while his wall-crawling alter ego is fast becoming a beloved icon in the city. On the other hand, Mary Jane Watson hits it off as a broadway performer on a sassy local theater. Happy happy!

Enter catastrophes!

A convict (believed to be the gunman of Peter's uncle) escaped from prison and, by a freak accident on some physics lab, was transformed into Sandman - bent on stealing moolah for the hospitalization of his sickly daughter. Harry Osborn's back too with a hipper costume as the New Goblin, still wanting to avenge the death of his father which he blamed on Spidey. Along came an alien psymbiote that hosted itself on Parker's suit, making Spiderman vulnerable to corruption when he wears it. To top everything, MJ was sacked for a bad performance and our geek guy, Parker, was in danger of the same fate within the Daily Bugle as a competition surfaced in the name of Eddie Brock, a freelance photographer.

One event lead to another and in a bizarre intertwining of fate, everything fell on the wrong side of things for Spiderman. He eventually seemed to be loosing the love of MJ as she sought comfort to their bestfriend Harry Osborn which on the latter part of the movie used this leverage to make Peter's life more miserable by inciting the breakup of the lovebirds. Down in depression, Peter gathered strength to move on by wearing the psymbiotic "Black Spider Suit" and thus fall into taint. With it, he sought revenge against the Sandman and humiliated Eddie Brock... and dated his love prospect, Gwen Stacy.

Later in the film, Peter Parker would be able to forcibly take off the psymbiote which apparently has a weakness for loud soundwaves. Coincidentally, Brock was in the place where Spidey removed the Black Spiderman psymbiote and the alien entity transferred on Brock to gave birth to the Venom!!! Wait... TO THE VENOM!!!! *insert thunderous sounds here*

Venom, spiteful of what he suffered from the hands of the web-crawler, tagged along with Mister Sandman to kill Spidey, using MJ as a bait slash hostage. Spiderman, being renewed from his brief exposure to the "dark side", battled it out with the two villains in vain. In came, the spunky New Goblin, who turned to the "light side" when he realized Spiderman din't actually kill his father. He aided to the death of Venom and Sandman's cheesy shift to consider "talking it out" with Spiderman instead, but the eventual payback was his own filthy rich Goblin life.

Maybe it's the hillarity of the badboy Peter Parker and his swinger antics but I didn't like how this sequel turned out to feel lighter than its predecessors. Sure, I had good laughs on most of the comedy lines but that's exactly what's upsetting. I believe the movie should better off making viewers go "oooohh" and "aaaahh" rather than laughing their arses off their seats. Don't take me wrong though. The CG effects were awesome *insert triple exclamation marks here* Have you seen how Sandman first restructured his body from the sandpit? That's just wicked! Total hands up on the quality of effects and production.

The down side...

There were several sub-plots for the major roles in the film (Brock, Parker, Miss Watson, Harry, Sandman, and even briefly, Gwen) tied into one cluttered storyline. OK, the writer pulled off bridging these sub-plots to be coherent enough for viewers to piece it all up along the film. However, in exchange for this, the character developments were done hastily in a poor attempt to just give each of them enough time to have a real "effect" on the narrative flow. That, I don't dig. As usual, there's a LOT of happenings that would challenge the laws of physics and logic but they were tolerable enough since the movie was comic book-adapted anyway. But mind you... some really looked outright dumb like on the last parts of the film when Sandman just suddenly got into his wits and "sit it out" with Spiderman for some tear-jerky talk and sympathetic make up... AFTER POUNDING SPIDEY FIST AFTER FIST OF GOD KNOWS HOW MANY TONS OF SAND TO DEATH earlier on that same scene!!!. Bwahehehehe.

The casts are cool. Nuff said on that. The only person lacking for me is Gwen Stacy (Dallas Howard)... so so performance. She's not one of those comic book character anyway so yeah... oks lang. The others fit their roles like nuts and bolts. Hands up on that too. I also liked (always liked even on Spiderman 1 and 2) the way how the writers portrayed Spiderman as someone who was as vulnerable to his "human" problems as he was when he's on his alter-ego mode. Napaka "human" niya so to speak.

To sum up, the movie has considerably awful flaws but the mix of light approach to the mood and some very sympathy-inducing scenes would actually make you think your money's worth it. I did. It's a "fun" movie to watch in the most shallow meaning of the word, but not the "classic" material that is worthy of such a cool iconic hero. Six gulamans worth!

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SPIDER-MAN 3 by jaiskizzy

the gist: lotta stuff going on in this spiderific second sequel, true believers. things are doing peachy fine for our friendly neighborhood spidey. the people of new york that once despised him now worship our wall-crawling wonder, and his relationship with mary jane is swinging sky high and he wants to marry her. but of course, that aint gonna last in a film like this. i mean, what's a superhero movie without supervillains? enter the new goblin: harry osborn following his father's fiendish footsteps. enter sandman: (where's metallica anyway?) flint marko who takes on a life of crime to save his sick daughter and gains the power to become sand. enter venom: eddie brock, the new hostile host to the symbiote that our hero once owned (or owned our hero, i guess). peter parker's got his hands full this time, eh? will spider-man outwit, outlast, and outweb his way out of this outstandingly? will more alliterations appear again? 'nuff said. on with the review!

the reaction: i remember back in high school during a boring class drawing spider-man on a page of my notebook having six hands, the three on right clinging onto an invisible wall, the three on the left shooting web. what made this drawing stupid though is that all arms had the costume on them. that it would seem that peter parker had actually sewn up a costume accommodating all six of his arms. crazy. anyways, i don't think we'll be seeing a six-armed spidey in a movie any time soon. before, i also thought that my favorite spider-man villain, venom, wouldn't be showing up for a while, but when they announced a part three and that venom would be in it, i was so ecstatic that i would have reserved a ticket right then. i mean, seriously, folks, venom made spider-man 3 double cool and in a way he was the movie's saving grace (played by topher grace). don't get me wrong. i liked the movie. it's good and really not as bad as a lot of people say so. however, it hurts to type this, it's the least i like among the three. i have no idea what happened but sam raimi just failed to surpass his previous attempts. he merely gave us a spider-man movie. that's it. well, that is what everybody wants but of course, once you've upped the ante, you have to keep the ante up. and it doesnt necessarily mean having three villains. sure, it's a great challenge for spidey, but i honestly think that venom alone could have sufficed. they should have just left out the sandman plot entirely and gave the space to the venom.

well, okay, thomas haden church acted really well, so did the rest of them, especially tobey maguire, but i just felt like it could have worked better without him. the sandman effects weren't even that blow-away good. and they shouldn't have messed up uncle ben's death just to connect him more to peter. that's like the death of batman's parents or the explosion of planet krypton. we got it. we like it the way it is. move along. harry osborn's revenge arc was way better than that. the inclusion of gwen stacy is also well accepted since she played an integral part of peter's life issues in and out of the costume. bryce dallas howard's bubbliness cast quite a shadow over the always mediocre kirsten dunst. i'd be glad to see a different and better-looking actress play mary jane in the next sequels. i mean, come on, she's even named mary jane, for chrissakes. she's supposed to make you high.

okay, let's talk about venom again, beginning with the symbiote. i like how it just came from space with no explanation and coincidentally landing near peter and mary jane's makeshift make out motel. i like the cg on the symbiote. it looked like it was really real. i like the black costume despite not being totally black and having a white spider like in the comics. i like peter parker's emo mode. ive heard many gripes about this one, how it looked a bit goofy, what with peter pistol-fingering ladies on the street and doing a dance number a la the mask, but i completely understood what he was going through (i had recently gotten a haircut that lifted up my confidence a bit). i like eddie brock's plot. i like venom's design even though the slimy tongue was absent. i like how they used topher grace's unaltered voice when venom speaks. i just wish there was more venom. i'd have paid triple just for a longer, meaner one-on-one between spidey and venom. anyways, another thing that deserves praise about this movie are the sound effects. the punches, the metallic hits, and yeah, even sandman's sand sounds, awesome. and, of course, it would be a crime not to mention bruce campbell's hilarious cameo and the always funny j. jonah jameson. classic.

it maybe flawed and topsy-turvy, but i still loved it. the mere fact that the spider-man i used to only read in comics, draw on paper, and watch in cartoons continues to conquer cinemas causes me immense geeky happiness. i just hope that sam raimi or whoever will come on board in his place if ever does their homework on the next one. time for spider-man 4, baby!

the good: the cast (except for the dunst), the comedy, and venom.
the bad: sandman.
the ugly: two-face!
the verdict: 8 pumpkin bombs.


your friendless neighborhood spider-skiz.

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