But isn't piracy BAD for movies?

Rating: 5/10 (24 July 2006)

Lame joke, but I can't think of a good summary. Pirates of the Caribbean is a pretty decent summer blockbuster that received much acclaim thanks to massive marketing. It's not terribly original, it's not terribly funny(lots of the lines meant to be funny really doesn't work very well) and in the end, it's not terribly satisfying either.
As movies come, it's solid and well-made and there's nothing to complain about in directing or the score, which both are good. The acting is one of the disappointments. Orlando Bloom is totally wooden as usual, Kiera Knightley doesn't exactly leave an impression, and Johnny Depp, although he is a god of acting, doesn't take his cool role nearly as far as he could have(with a script like PoTC's, there's no room for anything outside the frames of well-tried movie/money-making guides).
The plot is the standard damsel-in-distress scenario and some Incan curse thrown in for good measure. Add a bit of Dawn of the Dead or the work of Ray Harrihausen in "Jason and the Argonauts" and you have the storyline.
I've watched PoTC two times and it has failed to impress me both times. It's a bit too violent to be appropriate to the audience I think would have appreciated it best, and a bit to childish to appeal to the rest of the movie-goers. Not something you have to see.