Arrrrrr!

Rating: 8/10 (9 September 2003)

Great to see that careful planning, structuring and audience studying pay off sometimes. The audience can at times be a strange beast, and can sink pictures in the same turf where others have been glorified. But Disney couldn't allow this movie to suffer the fate of Roman Polanski's "Pirates" or "Cutthroat Island". First major rule: stick to what you know, and always trust the school of Hollywood - thus, create a buddy-buddy formula, add the love interest, and then create a baddie, or even better, an army of baddies to go chase the heroes. The cornerstones of the typical american blockbuster are all right there, splattered on the screen, just pick them out. Second major rule: give the audience the very thing they're looking for when in the movies - exactly those things that they're not expecting. So assume the pirate theme and adapt it to the 21st century - and then come the bombastic the special effects. These two rules are usually gold, and when you tackle a movie genre that hasn't been touched for almost ten years, it isn't difficult to give people what they want to see. But this apparent ease of thought would trap Disney, so thank God for brilliant ideas - and one brilliant actor. Johnny Depp steals the show right from his unforgettable entrance, and never thinks of allowing some space for other things to provide comic relief. And neither do the filmmakers, and the public. As Jack Sparrow, the gallery of Depp-ish weirdness is complete with a full-on, iconic buckaneer, brilliantly crossing pirate stereotype with pop culture in a performance of rare dedication and method for a summer blockbuster. The result is the most memorable character of the picture, and also the entire blockbuster season. "Pirates of the Caribbean" could be in many ways another flop, but the producers made this movie by studying everything that made the others sink to the bottom. And also did Jerry Bruckheimer, whose "Pearl Harbor" left more bitterness in his mouth than memories in the entire audience. A refined sense of style, bombastic CGI skelletons and a script that only feels muddled when it seeks help in some of the chapters of the "Hollywood book of screenwriting", make this a winner, and one of the best popcorn-munchers of the year. Expect Peter Weir's / Russell Crowe's "Master and Commander", expect "Pirates of the Caribbean 2", and most probably seafaring adventures are back into the silver screen. Ahoy!