Saturday, August 14, 2010

Blockbuster Trash: Pirates II- Stagnetti's Revenge

I should probably explain what's going on here or nothing will make sense.  In 2005, my hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida (direct hate-mail there, thank you) got great news: a movie was being shot in our harbor.  Sadly, this turned out to be a porno film called Pirates.  Boy, did we have egg on our faces (as opposed to something else)!  The movie actually had a big (for porn) budget and features a semi-coherent, adventure story.  After winning 11 (porn) awards, an R-Rated cut was made and released.  In 2008, they made a sequel.  Guess what- Netflix carries it!  Hell, you can find it in a Blockbuster next to Pirates of Treasure Island (The Asylum's Pirates movie)!  The sequel is...also cut down to an R-Rated movie.  Is it worth a look?  Considering I already watched the movie over a week ago, I sure hope so!  Here's all you need to know: our hero (Evan Stone) has returned home after killing the evil Stagnetti.  All set?  Good.  Get out your Viagra for my review of...

Our lovely story begins with a group of pirates attacking a ship.  Wow, I never would have called that!  The villains- led by an Asian hottie- kill most of the men on board before stealing a big, CG orb.  Great- now you've gotten Saruman's attention!  Cut to our crew of pirate hunters riding back to the mainland after defeating the evil Stagnetti.  Yes, by all means make your sequel set right after the last one, despite making it three years later.  Our hero (Stone) is a pompous jerk who likes to pose and tell his life's story to his British-Guy-cliche of a second-in-command.  In a joke that gets pounded (no pun intended) into the ground, he brags about his victory, despite his Asian cannon-worker firing the finishing shots.  He makes a point about he should get credit as the Captain...which actually makes sense.  I know that it's played for laughs (supposedly), but he does have a point!  One of Stagnetti's crew turned on him to join the crew, but she's still got a pirate history.  At the mainland, they talk to the Mayor (after his edited-out sex scene) and he...hits on both Stone and his lady partner.  Um, okay.  He sends them off on a mission to find the pirates from the introduction before making clear that they won't pardon the woman.  Him and his lady have to go undercover though, which will make many hijinks ensue...allegedly.

After a pointless sex scene between our heroine and a brunette...which isn't shown (see above), the blond gets captured and put under a spell...of some sort.  Our hero, meanwhile, runs across a slave trade going on and buys a French wench.  After some lead-in, that sex scene actually occurs in my R-Rated cut.  Wow, that was actually unexpected at this point!  The after-glow is ruined by the arrival of his entranced second-in-command and gets captured.  He is sent to fight in a gladiatorial arena against a guy...only to learn that the real villain is an obviously-CG worm creature.  Thankfully, the bi-curious brunette from earlier leaps out, turns into a Playstation 2 character and the kills the beast, somehow turning back to normal when she hits the ground.  They escape to track down the woman pirate.  Meanwhile, the evil pirates go out to the site of the last film's finale and drop the orb into the water, somehow exposing an underwater city and Stagnetti's body.  Stealing a bit from The Mummy, he sucks out a lackey's life force and returns to life.  Gee, it's only been an hour!  Why is your name in the title again?

As the movie enters the third and final act, it...is about the same.  We get more stupid jokes, more silly action and more edited-out sex scenes.  Stagnetti and his lady use our heroine for a threesome...for some reason as they head towards land.  On land, a secondary character from Pirates marries the cannon-operator's sister and arrives to help out.  After the pair take out a ship full of skeletons, Stagnetti uses his magic, deus ex machina staff to summon a giant water...um, larvae.  They take that out as well, leading to a fight between our brunette heroine and the entranced blond.  This lasts all of fifteen seconds before they are stuck under a beam and Stagnetti arrives to gloat.  Stone shows up to save the day with his sword.  His actual sword, you perverts!  The villain is vanquished and our blond heroine finds time for a threesome with the secondary character and his Asian bride (also not shown).  Without even a wipe, we get to our ending scene, which sets up Pirates 3: Stagnetti Is Back...For Real This Time!  No, really.

This movie...is really strange and pointless.  The film is a soft-core porn film that has nearly all of the porn cut out of it.  I mean, really?!?  When all of the dirty stuff is cut out, you're left with a fairly un-funny comedy with a cookie-cutter plot.  Of course, they don't cut out all of the set-up scenes...which is odd.  Seriously, this movie sets up threesomes at least four or five times (always two girls and one guy) and just cut.  By the way, I should point out that two of the scenes are not cut out.  After three or four scenes, I was surprised when a sex scene actually occurred!  After the two of them occur, every other one is cut off!  I like to picture the producers arguing before the MPAA in regards to how much nudity/sex they could have.  Maybe they wanted four scenes, but finally had to agree to only two.  In the movie's defense, there is a decent CG budget.  In contrast, however, the CG looks like shit when any actor appears on screen with it.  The high point: when Stagnetti chokes a guy, turning him into a skeleton.  Right before he fully transforms, you see the hand still in place over the neck that's not there anymore!  That's actually a good metaphor for the film itself.  It could be so much more than it is, but the opportunity is just choked away.  Either make a porn film or don't!  Seriously- what's the point?!?

Up next, the Living Dead theme comes back with a weird '80s movie.  Can little kids with lasers stop a zombie outbreak?  Stay tuned...

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