High production values do not cancel out the mostly hollow affair

Rating: 5/10 (30 November 2006)

This big budget swashbuckler reinstated Hollywood's interest in pirates, reaffirmed Johhny Depp as a bankable mainstream leading man, and refocused the industry with it's surprisingly high box office performance, followed by an even more surprising (though widely regarded as inferior) net gain from it's sequel. So why did I not have half the fun as I was anticipating with The Curse of the Black Pearl? Despite having all the key ingredients at making this rousing adventure come to life, Pirates still flounders with a repetitious script, an overkill of production, and of course the general disengaged, auto-piloted mentality that one immediately associates with any massive studio release. Yes, Depp's inspired take as the woozy captain Jack Sparrow does breathe some fresh air into the stale script, though his acting, more often then not, devolves into processed caricature rather then the engaged perceptiveness we are used to seeing from an accomplished actor such as Depp. Also, the casting of uber-talented Geoffry Rush did help break up much of the monotony the time-killing script wished to parlay. Ultimately though, these elevated Hollywood performances are buried under ten tons of sheen, smoke, and explosions that could only be appropriately titled "The Bruckheimer effect" which finds the mega- producer, as usual, filling in any actual emotional content with a barrage of over-excessive special effects and action sequencing. Shame too, because with Depp at the helm, and the few scenes that show off the inherent humor, personality and flavor this franchise could have offered, it became obvious that this could have been so much more memorable then the hollow ride it turns out to be. As far as popcorn family entertainment goes, I can justify the massive amount of success the movie has reaped, although to elevate this movie past the point of good, into the realm of great, as many reviewers have done, seems well overrated, as I mostly spent my two and a half hours waiting for the resolution in this lackluster plot.