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About Keizertimes. (Salem, Or.) 1979-current | View Entire Issue (April 2, 2021)
PAGE A10, KEIZERTIMES, APRIL 2, 2021 Our reviewer says The Lost Pirate Kingdom is a mix of genres that fails to gel. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ “ This community is beautiful and the whole Submitted photo staff is so attentive and caring! As a family member, I always want the very best for my Mom and I know that we have found an incredible place where I know that she is happy and well-cared for. The atmosphere is engaging and respectful and it is so good to know that Mom is in such good hands. I would highly recommend this community to anyone! ” — HEIDI C. r ached t h e age of si i x t y -two. t ose who ha v e re v i n g f o r th ual l i t y senior lilvi Come See the Finest in Senior Living! CALL (503) 390 -1300 1165 McGee Ct NE, Keizer, OR • www.VillageAtKeizerRidge.com Netflix pirate doc is (AAARRGH) painful By TJ REID For the Keizertimes When the Disney World fi rst opened in 1971, there was one Disneyland attraction that was conspicuously missing: Pirates of the Caribbean. According to park lore, this was done because it was initially believed that Floridians would be less charmed by pirates thanks to their proximity to the Caribbean itself. This turned out to be a miscalculation as one thing became clearer over the years: that everyone loves pirates. Disney World would get its Pirates ride in 1973, and nearly fi ve decades later it and its brethren in Anaheim, Paris, and Shanghai remain some of the most popu- lar attractions Disney has to off er. There is something undeniably appealing about the adventurous lifestyle that these rogues lead, but who were they as people? What is the truth behind the legends? Netfl ix’s new docuseries The Lost Pirate Kingdom wants desperately to give viewers these answers, but just might end up making them sea- sick instead thanks to its laughable reen- actments, mind numbing repetitiveness, and lack of good history. An ugly hybrid between documen- tary and historical drama, The Lost Pirate Kingdom is an absolute chore. The talking heads are periodically inter- rupted here by bad actors in bad costumes who try their darndest to conjure up the high seas excitement of a Pirates of the Caribbean fi lm, all the while accompa- nied by a score that sounds like discount Hans Zimmer. These reenactments are not entertaining, nor are they necessary, as everything the actors do and say is just a repeat of what the historians themselves said fi ve seconds before. And speaking of unnecessary, this documentary is R-rated. As in, there are multiple f-bombs and more than one topless prostitute. Why? Because this is Netfl ix, and our documentary is going to be spicy, dammit! If The Lost Review Pirate Kingdom would have worried less about being a gritty, low-budget Pirates of the Caribbean movie then it would have had more time to show some actual his- torical depth, but as it is the information conveyed is shockingly shallow. What was the War of Spanish Succession and what did it have to do with the rise of piracy in the eighteenth century? Don’t worry about it! Here’s a love scene between Sam Bellamy and a woman that may have not even existed! This leads me to the other gripe that I had with The Lost Pirate Kingdom — the passing off of speculation and hearsay as fact. If there is one thing I have learned about the pirates of the Golden Age in my reading throughout the years, it’s that their history is often very diffi cult to nail down because men like Blackbeard and Benjamin Hornigold were not exactly the diary-keeping types. Historians have to fi ll in a lot of blanks, and this series does a very poor job of acknowledging that. If you do not have some prior knowledge of these people and events already then it will be impossible to know what is histori- cal fact and what is historical speculation. Skip this one and get your pirate fi x elsewhere. I personally recommend The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down by Colin Woodard (who happened to be one of the talking heads in this series). Here in The Lost Pirate Kingdom, there be only monsters. The Lost Pirate Kingdom is now avail- able on Netfl ix.
