Bazillion$ in Profit$ and They Couldn't Hire a Screenwriter?

Rating: 5/10 (11 July 2006)

Bored. Almost walked out.
Yeah, I read the bad reviews. But I'm a longtime Rafael Sabatini fan, so I'll buy a ticket to anything with "Pirates" in the title, and, like half the world, I fell for Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, so I had to go see it for myself.
The special effects were JUST TOO MUCH. Special effects, see, are *special* because you save them to make create a *special effect.* When you are looking at a special-effects, octopus face throughout much of a movie, it becomes ... less special.
Bill Nighy, who played Davy Jones, the character with the octopus on his face, can be a thrilling actor. He was riveting as an aging rock star in "Love, Actually." You couldn't take your eyes off him. And he didn't have an octopus on his face. He was just ... ACTING. *Acting* really well, from a *witty, surprising script,* that engaged him in *an interesting plot.* Gee ... could POTC take a clue from that? What difference do POTC:DMC's visually fabulous hamster-wheel stunt, or its fruit-kabob stunt make, if you don't have a coherent plot, built up through well written dialolgue, acted by characters you care about? Captain Jack Sparrow was such an endearing character in the first pirates; why was his character wasted in "Dead Man's Chest"? Why did he have few to no scenes to develop this well beloved character? The movie pretty much ignores any effort to build up Elizabeth Swann's (Keira Knightly) or Will Turner's (Orlando Bloom)'s characters.
Oh, I know you're going to go see it. You know you're going to go see it. And no matter how many reviews this movie gets that criticize its complete failure to pay any attention at all to character, plot, and dialogue, it will make bazillions of dollars.
Which, in a sense, is a shame. Special Effects may bring in the cash, but even a popcorn movie needs some soul, and some heart, and this movie is as soulless and heartless as its Davy Jones.