terrific movie made more terrific by Depp

Rating: 8/10 (27 June 2004)

When a movie has an actor whose performance really stands out, especially in some mindless action pic, it's tempting to just give him all the credit for the movie, but I was surprised to find that there is a lot more to recommend the movie than just Depp's fascinating performance. The movie as a whole is quite amusing, the action is well handled, especially the highly entertaining sword duel between Depp and Bloom and it's really pretty imaginative for something that was created just to capitalize on the success of an amusement park ride.
A movie like this is clearly designed to have a great, flashy performance. Depp was hired for that role and did it beautifully, but if not Depp, the producers would have undoubtedly gone for another actor who could give an over-the-top comic performance. You could actually have a pretty good movie if you replaced Depp with someone more generic, but the movie couldn't really work without a big performance here.
The producers were very fortunate to get Depp, who is a wonderful and inventive actor. His gives Jack Sparrow a loose-limbed charm that makes you suspect he's always slightly drunk, but while a quirky pirate he still gives you that Errol-Flynn sort of swashbuckle. I wouldn't want to in any way diminish his credit, but I just wanted to point out that the movie is consistently well-acted and stylish in its own right.