up on the shore they work all day! out in the sun they slave away!
So I finally saw this. I haven't read anyone else's reactions yet, so be prepared for UTTER REDUNDANCY.
OH WOW. IT WAS SO GREAT. I LIKED IT SO MUCH. This film was like what the devil would offer Faust if Faust was five years old and had ADHD. THIS FILM HAD EVERYTHING. It had PIRATES and SQUIDS and CHASES and FIGHTS and CANNIBALS and MEN ROLLING DOWN A HILL IN A GIANT WICKER BALL and MEN CLIMBING A CLIFF IN A GIANT WICKER BALL and snakes and coconuts and giant squid and kebabs and teacups and heroes and fake ghosts and drowned dresses and rum and FAMILY REUNIONS ABOARD AN EVIL GHOST SHIP FILLED WITH ENSLAVED CRAB-PEOPLE and gambling and slapstick and ANGSTY SCOTTISH SQUID PLAYING THE ORGAN and palm trees and daddy issues and coffins rowed with shin bones and ZOMBIE MONKEYS IF YOU PLEASE and running and climbing and FIGHTING ON A GIANT HAMSTER WHEEL and rapscallions and ruffians and wigs and kraken and voodoo ladies living in the swamp on houses with legs and dastardly plots and daring deeds and cross-dressing and barfights and pigpens and explosives and OH. IT WAS JUST SO SHINY AND SILLY AND AWESOME. ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Norrington: hmm. Eeenteresting. You know, in the first twenty minutes of the film I was like, "THIS IS LIKE FANFIC", with the sort of everything-but-the-kitchen-sink wigginess of the plot, and the wild enthusiasm, and the geeky in-jokes from the first film. And it was a sort of fanficcy extrapolation of his character, I thought, the sort of what-if that you expect your canon to stay solidly away from. They could have gone all sorts of directions with the character sketched in the first film, of course, but I'm a little sad they went this way. The line "By remembering that I serve others, not just myself" was what made me love him more than anyone else in the first film. I miss his moral centre. Wah. I'm hoping there's a nice bridging explanation out there.
BUT. The Sparrow/Norrington. OMG. I wasn't expecting there to still be reasonable canonical grounds for Sparrow/Norrington by the end of the second film. But OH MY GOD. !!!!!. They flirted and they were perfect and amazing and Norrington always at every point knew EXACTLY what Jack was doing and was always always right about him and matched him turn for turn and knew him better than ANYONE else did! And he's as smart as him and as tough as him and he fights as well as him and he's clever and cool and sarcastic and ferociously competent and looks at Jack with clear clear eyes and they have love-hate and knowing and they are AWESOME TOGETHER and PERFECT FOR EACH OTHER and they reduce me to SHOUTY CAPITALISATION OF MADNESS because they were SO GREAT. They had this weird sort of equality and comfortableness around each other and their banter fit together and they were both oh so hot and Norrington's a bit mad too now but still oh so sane and they are YUMMY AND DELICIOUS AND WONDERFUL OH YES. I want fic where they kiss and fic where they fight and fic where they're stranded together and fic where Norrington walks out of his cabin naked in the moonlight and Jack falls over and dreadful fic where the compass gets them together in a yenta-like fashion and fic where they're forced to work together and fic where they bicker and fight and snark and rescue each other and Jack reflects on how strangely well Norrington gets him and OH EM GEE THE GLORY OH THEY ARE OLDSCHOOL.
Other things. I can only think in bullet points.
OH WOW. IT WAS SO GREAT. I LIKED IT SO MUCH. This film was like what the devil would offer Faust if Faust was five years old and had ADHD. THIS FILM HAD EVERYTHING. It had PIRATES and SQUIDS and CHASES and FIGHTS and CANNIBALS and MEN ROLLING DOWN A HILL IN A GIANT WICKER BALL and MEN CLIMBING A CLIFF IN A GIANT WICKER BALL and snakes and coconuts and giant squid and kebabs and teacups and heroes and fake ghosts and drowned dresses and rum and FAMILY REUNIONS ABOARD AN EVIL GHOST SHIP FILLED WITH ENSLAVED CRAB-PEOPLE and gambling and slapstick and ANGSTY SCOTTISH SQUID PLAYING THE ORGAN and palm trees and daddy issues and coffins rowed with shin bones and ZOMBIE MONKEYS IF YOU PLEASE and running and climbing and FIGHTING ON A GIANT HAMSTER WHEEL and rapscallions and ruffians and wigs and kraken and voodoo ladies living in the swamp on houses with legs and dastardly plots and daring deeds and cross-dressing and barfights and pigpens and explosives and OH. IT WAS JUST SO SHINY AND SILLY AND AWESOME. ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Norrington: hmm. Eeenteresting. You know, in the first twenty minutes of the film I was like, "THIS IS LIKE FANFIC", with the sort of everything-but-the-kitchen-sink wigginess of the plot, and the wild enthusiasm, and the geeky in-jokes from the first film. And it was a sort of fanficcy extrapolation of his character, I thought, the sort of what-if that you expect your canon to stay solidly away from. They could have gone all sorts of directions with the character sketched in the first film, of course, but I'm a little sad they went this way. The line "By remembering that I serve others, not just myself" was what made me love him more than anyone else in the first film. I miss his moral centre. Wah. I'm hoping there's a nice bridging explanation out there.
BUT. The Sparrow/Norrington. OMG. I wasn't expecting there to still be reasonable canonical grounds for Sparrow/Norrington by the end of the second film. But OH MY GOD. !!!!!. They flirted and they were perfect and amazing and Norrington always at every point knew EXACTLY what Jack was doing and was always always right about him and matched him turn for turn and knew him better than ANYONE else did! And he's as smart as him and as tough as him and he fights as well as him and he's clever and cool and sarcastic and ferociously competent and looks at Jack with clear clear eyes and they have love-hate and knowing and they are AWESOME TOGETHER and PERFECT FOR EACH OTHER and they reduce me to SHOUTY CAPITALISATION OF MADNESS because they were SO GREAT. They had this weird sort of equality and comfortableness around each other and their banter fit together and they were both oh so hot and Norrington's a bit mad too now but still oh so sane and they are YUMMY AND DELICIOUS AND WONDERFUL OH YES. I want fic where they kiss and fic where they fight and fic where they're stranded together and fic where Norrington walks out of his cabin naked in the moonlight and Jack falls over and dreadful fic where the compass gets them together in a yenta-like fashion and fic where they're forced to work together and fic where they bicker and fight and snark and rescue each other and Jack reflects on how strangely well Norrington gets him and OH EM GEE THE GLORY OH THEY ARE OLDSCHOOL.
Other things. I can only think in bullet points.
- I was liking Elizabeth more and more every minute of this, and then she sealed the deal by being smart and ruthless and AWESOME. I have a huge kink for people making the unpalatable practical decision, and she DID and she was BRILLIANT and she KISSED HIM and he called her pirate and she LOVED HIM and she destroyed her whole life by making the hard decision and I LOVE HER.
- That bit. That bit that killed me. The bit where she kissed him and ohh, they've been waiting to do that a good long while, and ohhh it showed, and the HANDCUFFS and she chained him and he opened his eyes and the LOOKING they LOOKED AT EACH OTHER there was LOOKING he looked with his EYES and the looking and the eyes and the eyelashes and the smile and he smiled at her and he kept LOOKING and they LOOKED AT EACH OTHER and his EYES and the looking and the SMILING and the LOOKING and and the eyes and and the EYES and they were looking and he said "Pirate" AND MY PANTS MELTED. OH HOLY GOD.
- They drew EYES ON HIS FACE. AND EYES ON HIS EYELIDS. And then he blinked and closed his eyes and opened his eyes and looked up and looked down and looked sultry and had his eyes at half-mast and there were so many eyes OH MY GOD EYES.
- I like Will. He makes me laugh so. He is such a chronic over-committer. He would be brilliant in an office setting. "I will bring you coffee! You want triple-organic decaf expresso with badger milk? I will bring it to you! I swear it! And then I will fix the fax machine! Do not doubt it! You want volunteers to do overtime? I will do overtime! I will stay until midnight!". He's adorable.
- BOOTSTRAP BILL IS HOT LIKE WHOA. Dawwww I love him and he was sad and dawwwwwww awwwww love LOVE. Oh Bill.
- TIO DALMA OH MY YES. She collected buttons and laughed at everyone and eee, she and Jack Sparrow, eeee.
- Jack Sparrow is basically the most brilliant thing in the world, isn't he? It's so unusual to have a character that's written to be All That who actually is All That.
- I loved how during the climatic fight scene they had the two alpha males duelling obliviously on a giant hamster wheel while the women, queers and crustaceans battled it out among themselves.
- Lord Beckett was Tom Hollander! I knew there must be a reason why, despite everything else about the way he was played, his eyes were somehow saying "I AM A VULNERABLE LITTLE BOY WHO WAS ABUSED BY HIS NANNY AND I AM CRYING OUT IN THE BLEAK DARK PRISON OF MY SOUL". Tom Hollander has that strange power.
- Barbossa! Eeee!
- Davey Jones is Sebastian-from-the-little-mermaid's no-good brother!1 Once I realised this I laughed and laughed. I tried re-wording "Under the Sea" to suit Davey Jones' purposes, but it didn't work out very well and I rapidly got stuck: up on the shore they work all day/ under the sea we are enslaved/ what could be better/ than crusty fetters/ under the sea!
- That was just so Disney, wasn't it? I'm not complaining. It left me with a great sense of peace, and absolutely no desire to pick or worry or criticise or analyse or anything. I kept on getting titillated by something, like the use of the East India Trading Company, or Davey Jones as a Poseidon/Neptune incarnation, or the voodoo people, or what I do actually think about the depiction of pirates and the morals of everyone in this damn film, and then it'd get buried in the avalanche of shiny, and I wouldn't mind at all.
- Jack/Norrington (duh). OH THEY ARE SO PERFECT OH OH OH.
- Norrington/Lord Beckett. OOOH there had better be some of this OOH. With plotting and bitter Englishness and languorous emnity and Norrington being all fierce-eyed and Beckett being all HELLO I AM TOM HOLLANDER I WAS ABUSED AS A CHILD AND THAT IS WHY I AM A COLD KNIFE-EDGED PSYCHOPATH. And spanking. Lots of spanking.
- Beckett/Sparrow. THEY'VE BRANDED EACH OTHER. GOOD GRIEF.
- Jack/crustacean!Bootstrap. THAT WAS KIND OF SEXY, when they were getting up in each other's grille in the hold. Bootstrap/Davey Jones. Jack/Tia Dalma. Elizabeth/Tia Dalma. This is practically canon; there is no way Elizabeth's boundless curiosity doesn't extend to lesbian flings. Everyone/Tia Dalma.
- Norrington fill-in, where geniuseseses reconcile POTC1!Norington with POTC2!Norrington and make it all right and make sense and make me happy and eeee and post-hurricane angst and when he resigns his commission and eee and eee.