Supriseingly Good for a Disneyland ride movie....

Rating: 9/10 (23 July 2003)

I have to admit going in to this picture I had some reservations. I mean how desperate has the movie industry become that they are driveing around Southern California looking for amusement park rides for story ideas. I grew up in Anaheim right next to Disneyland so I am intimately familiar with The Pirates of the Caribbean ride there. I have to say that thankfully though this movie only has passing resembleances to things that take place on the ride; instead chooseing (correctly) to use the ride as inspireation for almost a completely new story idea.
First off I have to say that the special effects were incredible, of course what could you expect but the best from ILM. I dont think i've seen a movie in the past year where they dident have some part in the special affects in the movie if needed.
The movie itself was supriseingly rather well paced. I dident realize untill I got home that the movie was over 2 hours long, there simply are no slow spots in the movie, and certainly nothing you'd start thinking about sneaking out to get some popcorn over so you better come in with all the goodies you want for those 2 hours because your not going to want to leave.

The story is amuseing in enough places to make the movie generaly classed as a comedy along with the action/adventure/fantasy tag but it somehow manages to roll all this into one without boreing the audience.

It's sappy in some places, but comidicly so instead of being weepy. And the romantic sub-plot is goofy enough to be funny but romantic enough to be beliveable, and above all fairly original.
The only reason I don't rate this movie a 10 is I dident leave it with the heart pounding intensity of being totaly drawn into the movie and the story it represents, but to be honest this dosent seem to be the intention of the movie at all. Instead it comes off as a light hearted romp thru the imagination of someone who's probably been on the ride at Disneyland one too many times. :)
There are a few nods to the ride itself also, specificly 3 or 4 places where scenes from the movie could have been cut directly out of the ride, but it comes off more as an homage to the ride origin of the story itself instead of the movie relying on peoples familiarity with the ride to support it.

There is also an amuseing bit at the end that I wont spoil here you can click on the side bar under "Crazy Credits" to see exactly what it is but it's probably the only part of the movie that shamelessly plugs the possiblility of a Part II if the movie goes in that direction.