The Pirates (7/10)

Here's a big budget Korean fantasy flick that could rival Hollywood in terms of production value, or at least it seemed that way.

I almost gave this a miss after watching the trailer on the way to the US because it felt so much like a Pirates Of The Caribbean rip-off with cheesy plots and a female-lead. Especially the score that you hear in the trailer, reminded me so much of all the bad taste the PotC franchise has become in the last couple ones.

But I'm glad I gave it a shot on the way back because I was pleasantly surprised and had to silence my laughter because everyone around me was asleep.

The Pirates had a silly premise of a whale swallowing a royal seal and a few bands of misfits had to go retrieve it back. All logic went out the window early on in the movie but because of the way Lee Seok Hoon told the story, mixing reality and fantasy, I just gave logic a pass and enjoyed the movie for the comedy that it was.

Kim Nam Gil and Son Ye Jin were competent leads and I enjoyed seeing their romance blossomed, but it was the comedic timing of Yoo Hae Jin that stole the limelight and offered up the biggest laughs. This guy is hilarious with the way he talked and all those facial expressions.

But also credit to Lee's direction as there were a few moments that were so great and so funny that I wished I could watch it in the cinema and enjoyed them on the big screen with other audience laughing together.

On the negatives, some scenes or plots weren't written out properly and resulted in plot holes. The whole band of thieves looked stupid with their ambition to kill a whale on a fishing boat, for instance.

The CGI of the whale, while spectacular (or as spectacular as can be seen on the tiny screen on a chair), wasn't competent enough to show the finer details of certain scenes. The cutaways from one scene to the next felt a little bit awkward.

Suddenly giving Son's character the power of super jumps only for one part of the movie also felt weird. And completely unnecessary. That chase sequence would have just been satisfying without her jumping tens of feet tall from building to building like a superhero. And that was also the scene where, like Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, there was a giant wheel involved. Too much similarities.

With a running time of over two hours long, The Pirates certainly was marketed like an epic action fantasy movie. By paying attention to some of the writing details the movie would have achieved a better result.