31 May 2007 - Pirates III

OPM*
Presents – Poirots of the Caribbean

I have had it with Viagra Spam! Every day people called Patricia Webbe, Doco Loco and Porsche Mary send me email about how I can safely buy the performance-enhancing drug cheap, in just a few minutes, over the Internet. Since I am a pretty two-dimensional person (as you’ve all noticed I’m severely lacking in the third dimension – Depth) with severe low esteem, Viagra Spam has had me worrying about whether people know something I haven’t realized yet. I have spent many hours this past week analysing several rather embarrassing things at an anthropological level, involving complex physical phenomena such as levers and fulcrum. After spending several afternoons in despair, I was brought some cheer when it came to my notice that my favourite movie franchise would release its third instalment this week. Yes, Captain Jack and his friends are coming to your neighbourhood, in the summer’s most awaited movie: Pirates of the Caribbean – At Wit’s end.

This week’s OPM takes a look at what the movie promises. We will need a little background info to begin with –

As the second instalment of the franchise was not as well received as the first movie, the studio decided that they needed to change the plot substantially to revive interest in Captain Jack Sparrow and his cohorts. To this end they ran a workshop in the Caribbean (around the same time the Cricket Worldcup was being played there) to rework the script for the third movie. After a tremendous amount of waxing and waning, not to mention some amount of mooning by 3 sexually repressed writers (yes, most of us are afflicted), inspiration hit them when the Woolmer murder flew into the resulting public outrage, across media everywhere. Why not turn the third movie into a whodunit? Due to the inexperience of their writers in writing for the genre they decided to turn to the grand dame of mystery, Agatha Christie and her civilian gendarme protagonists, for help. The intricate universe of characters from Agatha Christie’s books sets up the basis for the movie’s plot, also borrowing heavily from her 1964 publication, A Caribbean Mystery.

The suitably renamed Poirots of the Caribbean sees Johnny Depp reprise his role as Captain Jack Sparrow, but with a psychodynamic twist that would make Freud proud. Captain Jack keeps his name, but inhibiting him, somewhere between his Id and Super ego, is Dame Christie’s well-loved Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot (pronounced Hercule, as in Ridicule, Poirot as in Poor Rot) No, I don’t believe in silent alphabets. I say, call a spade a spade, dammit!

Jack Sparrow is made resplendent as Depp meshes Captain Jack’s irrepressible irresponsibility with Poirot’s droll wit, Jack’s effeminate prancing with Poirot’s haute-couture French suits and Jack’s cavalier womanising with Poirot’s opinion of Miss Lemon.
Johnny Depp puts on several kilos and goes bald to play this memorable character, especially with his anagrammatic bon mots and tongue in cheek humour that causes severe embarrassment to several Victorian women as it usually involves his tongue in someone else’s cheeks.

Keira Knightley plays Miss Marple; a thin sickly girl who misses her friend called Marple sorely and is determined to be in an adventure to find her. Her curiously eponymous character is the object of Inspector Japp’s affections, who consequently proceeds to inspect her at every given opportunity. (Orlando Bloom, a famous flowering tree from the city of Orlando FL plays Inspector Japp) Having to contend with Japp at every step Captain Jack tries to make the best of the situation by quoting the anagram: Menage a trois is an orgies team. (not that this works, but life goes on as Jack continues to savour the joys of savium with Miss Marple!)
To this eclectic mix is thrown in Geoffrey Rush, playing a wretched version of Sherlock Holmes who sports a monkey called Dr.Watson (a brilliant bit of evolutionary reversal that this character poses: a monkeying doctor or a doctored monkey?) on his shoulder.
The villain of the piece, a cross between Moriarty and a Chinese villain called Ichi the Killer is played by Chow Yun Fat (as a result of which, he is very obese)

It turns out that every character ends up on a ship sailing to Europe from the Caribbean, for reasons of their own. Captain Jack is hoping to display some tongue-in-cheek humour for Miss Marple’s benefit when Japp is not inspecting her. Sherlock is onboard, as someone has fooled his monkey into believing that the boat is sailing to a Banana Republic. Chow Yun Fat is trying to lose weight by being the solitary oarsman for the ship.

Things go nutty, when halfway into the Atlantic Ocean; Chow Yun Fat discovers that all the rowing has made him extremely fit. He stops rowing and a row erupts among the passengers.

What will happen as the ocean churns unhappily around this stationary ship and Captain Jack goes on a roll with his pithy anagrams (Dual gender is general dud, Humble arrogance is changeable rumor etc), trying to figure out who will row the boat? Go watch the movie to find out!



* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release