Month: July 2003

Last Sunday, I sauntered on down to the Boston Common movie theater, conveniently located on beautiful Boston Common, to see a movie. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see Terminator 3, Pirates of the Caribbean, or League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (that last being an outside chance of a choice), but I was in the mood for phat action. As the kids say.

So as I walk into the theater, some woman is trying to give away a Pirates ticket for the show that starts in ten minutes. I say that’s an omen, accept it with good grace, and head up to the theater. On my way out after the show, I note that I can easily catch the next showing of T3 if I’m willing to wait 45 minutes or so, and I had my Game Boy with me, so that was that.

Nothing like an unusually inexpensive double feature. The only problem is that I keep finding myself thinking what an excellently unusual Terminator Johnny Depp was, and I want to write a long essay about how Schwarzenegger is getting a bit old to play a swashbuckling pirate captain but the script did a good job of making that into an asset rather than a liability. The curse and all. And Claire Danes makes a fine a love interest with an athletic and adventurous bent. Wait, that one fits both movies. Well, you see the aftereffects.

I would recommend T3 if only they’d cast Natasha Henstridge as the new model Terminator. Kristanna Loken was so much the budget version. Other than that, good matinee. Pirates rocked just as much as everyone else says, and you don’t need me to tell you that.

I will say that Jack Davenport’s turn as the British naval officer was much more nuanced and subtle than we had any right to expect from such a part in such a movie; it’s been a long time since the boring corner of the love triangle got to play the conflict between duty and empathy. But Davenport’s a hell of an actor. Get Ultraviolet — it’s out on DVD.