Movie Magic

Every once in a while I'll watch a few movies. Not in the movie theaters, of course -- if I wanted to sit in an uncomfortable seat with a sticky floor with people talking all around me and music blasting at an ungodly volume, I'd go back to taking public transportation. No, I watch movies at home. In my own uncomfortable chair, with the music at a tolerable level. (The floor may or may not be sticky depending on how long it's been since one of the cats threw up on it.)

Anyhow, I don't have what you might call "highbrow" tastes. While I'm not quite as bad as JoJo the Enforcer (who gets confused if there are more than three characters), I'm not interested by too much subtlety. If I don't at least have some idea about what is going on in the first twenty minutes of a film, I won't watch it. Also, I don't like watching depressing movies. I don't care if that makes me a shallow person. If I wanted to watch people stuck in their miserable lives with no hope of anything getting better, I'd go back to taking public transportation.

I have no inherent problem with action films. I don't expect a plot that rivals a Russian novel. I don't expect a whole lot of character development. I don't even really expect there to be a lot of explanation for why the main character has to keep taking his shirt off to fight the bad guys. I'm okay with that.

What I don't understand is why so many of the films I've seen lately are so... boring. I watched the first two installments of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise over the weekend. If something has made it to number four, surely the first two should be reasonably good, right?

They were just sort of okay. There was a bit of a plot, and some of the characters were funny, but then, about every twenty minutes, there had to be a long drawn-out fight scene. And every time that happened, I'd wander around the house, check the refrigerator in case some chocolate had magically appeared, check my email, read a blog entry or two, and then go back to the movie.

Is it just me? Does anyone find those fight scenes interesting, no matter how well choreographed? Maybe it is just me. Maybe everyone else is at the edge of their seats.

But, frankly, if I wanted to see people fighting stupidly every twenty minutes, I'd go back to taking public transportation...