Anything Considered

Jack Sparrow: You know, for pirates, we sure are an unimaginative lot at naming things.
Jack Sparrow: I once sailed with a man that had lost both his arms and part of his eye.
Gibbs: What did you call him?
Jack Sparrow: [pause] Larry

Society tends to bound herself to narrow and self-serving expectations of movies, outside of which the film falls into a myriad of extremities - too crude, too complex, too dry, poor plot, shallow characters, witless, and the list goes on. It seems to me as if we seek to judge everything in comparison to the perceived perfect movie.

However highbrow we may be about our superior viewer's choice, it is precisely our call as viewer that turns this ideal on its head. For as the movie serves us, she can only whet our specific desires for the moment - whether they be macabre or slapstick. The ideal movie then changes as and when we demand, and every movie will fail the odds of a perfect fit in time.

I liked Pirates 3 despite the poor reviews. Jack Sparrow is the alter ego of our time - the alternative alternative in that he does everything and nothing at all. And it is precisely this positively cynical, all-be-damned attitude of Sparrow and the other pirates that carries the show. Certainly, Pirates 3 is more loosely hung together than its incisive predecessors, but I feel it fits just as well. Not all humour needs to bite.