Johnny Depp is great, movie is weak (**)

Rating: 4/10 (19 October 2003)

An "adaptation" of a ride at Disneyland seemed like kind of a flimsy idea, so I'm not entirely surprised that this overblown entry in the 2003 summer movie season isn't all that good.
Johnny Depp stars as Jack Sparrow, a humorously goofy pirate who walks with a constant, drunken swagger. Depp, as always, gives a fun and eccentric performance and gets some great lines in, but unfortunately he's the only thing worth remembering about this movie. The story and all the other characters are a total snooze.
Jack is trying to get his ship, the Black Pearl, back from a group of skeletal ghost pirates (led by a hammy Geoffrey Rush) who have kidnapped the beautiful Elizabeth Swann (Winona Ryder look-alike Keira Knightley) in order to use her blood to bring them back to life. Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) is in love with Elizabeth, so he teams up with Sparrow. Bloom, from the "Lord Of The Rings" movies and Knightley, from this year's great "Bend It Like Beckham" are both interesting actors, but the characters they're playing might as well be cardboard cutouts.
There is lots of action and some twists in the story, but I found very little of it interesting. In fact, Johnny Depp's likable performance and one-liners were all that kept me awake through the ridiculous 2 hour, 15 minute running time.
It's directed by Gore Verbinski, and I guess it shows he can direct a big summer movie, but it completely lacks the small-scale style and effectiveness of his earlier films like last year's eerie "The Ring" and especially the quirky, sadly underrated "The Mexican".

And when the army of skeletons shows up in the end, all I could think about was how much cooler it was in "Army Of Darkness".
I liked Depp's performance, but in a nutshell, the ride is better.