You're gonna be bothered by how cool I am.

Yeah, it's fairly absurd most of the time. The bone cage, the shish-kabob, the shell-head pirate, the mill wheel, etc. To me, this goes back to these movies' resemblance to the oral tradition tales. I just imagine someone telling this story and what, in a real story, might have been someone falling off a mill wheel in the middle of a sword fight becomes an elaborate 12-minute farce that's packed with physical impossiblities. Much like Gibbs and the story of how Jack got off the island via sea turtles.

Fascinating observation! You have a way of always pulling out things like this. Great review!!

About the length, I enjoyed every moment immensely and was never bored but I might have thought differently if I had been trying to watch it at home where a long movie means a much shorter night's sleep and a greater possibility of interruption from little people. (My opinion of King Kong suffered quite a bit for this reason.) If I have uninterrupted time, there's nothing I love more than to immerse myself in a good 2+ hour long epic, but my time is so limited, even an enjoyable movie can be too long for me.