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I'm James Maxey, the author of numerous novels of fantasy and science fiction. I use this site to discuss a wide range of topics, with a heavy emphasis on cranky, uninformed rants about politics and religion and other topics that polite people attempt to avoid. For anyone just wanting to read about my books, I maintain a second blog, The Prophet and the Dragon, where I keep the focus solely on my fiction. I also have a webpage where both blogs stream, with more information about all my books, at jamesmaxey.net.

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Saturday, July 29, 2006

My Super Ex-Girlfriend and Pirates of the Carribean

I saw "My Super Ex-Girlfriend" last night, and the Pirates of the Carribean sequel today. PotC came highly recommended, but I was disappointed. I didn't remember enough of the first movie to know who all the players were. And, I couldn't figure out why the characters felt loyalty to Captain Jack Sparrow, who betrays them in pretty horrible ways during the course of the film and shows no concern at all about the other characters. So, at the end of the film, when they are all agreeing to journey into Hell to save him, it felt completely arbitrary and unsupported by the movie's events. Finally, the action sequences dragged on way, way too long. I could have chopped this movie by a good hour just by making the fight sequences tighter.

Conversely, MSEG was a movie that had poor word of mouth and bad reviews, and when we went to the theatre, it was empty. But I found it to be a funny movie with some terrific superhero action. The movie was formulaic, yes, but played well within the confines of the formula. The movie also earned my respect by actually making me like the characters. Even the bad guy is easy to identify with. Seriously, if you want a good superhero movie, I think this beats Superman or X-men hands down this summer. I would rank it just below the Spiderman movies. It's even better than Mystery Men, another funny superhero flick.

One annoyance: Early in the movie, the characters are speculating about what the "G" in G-girl stands for, and I don't think that's ever revealed. A casual movie goer probably won't give a hoot, but I formed a theory from her early superhero feats that the "G" stood for gravity. When the whole thing is forgotten about, I felt robbed.

My "G" is for geek, no doubt, for worrying about such a thing....

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