"The Fog meets "Treasure Island".

Rating: 3/10 (13 July 2003)

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" has to be one film I'm addding to my "Worst Films of 2003" list.
"Pirates" has to be "one" of the oddest, strangest, most over-the-top, far out, blockbuster film's of the summer 2003 lot. For starters, director Verbinski isn't enough of a stylist to pull off the script's delicate balancing act. As he showed with the "The Mexican" Verbinski has problems finding just the right tone between humor and adventure. The film is never quite funny enough to make us forget that dramatically it's pretty slim stuff. With is combination of action, comedy, over the top acting, big sets and one-liners this movie couldn't be taken too seriously for an action film and it so far off the map that it couldn't be called a comedy.
For one thing Johnny Depp, who delivers what has to be the strangest lead performance in a $150 million Hollywood production to date, and has to be the only one brave enough to play a gay drunk pirate this side of the Caribbean. Wait until you see what Depp does here. You can't take your eyes off him!! He is funny, crazy and he over takes every single scean he is in. Even Geoffrey Rush is over shadowed by Depps's over the top performance.
Geoffrey Rush was great in his role as Barbossa, and it shows what a great actor Geoffrey Rush really his; and how multi-talented he really his even when he sells out to crap like "The Banger Sisters" or "pirates" He can make a really bad role work for him. But it was Depp's film and he ran with it!
Keira Knightley, well not much to say except she is a really bad actress and how many times do we have to set her either wet or getting her clothes ripped off with out once having bad hair or runny make-up?
Orlando Bloom was flat, his character was a cardbaord cut out of every single character out to rescuse the woman he loves and finds himself an adventure.
"Pirates" was a bad movie, but Depp's over the top performance was the best thing and the only thing besides the over top F/X and interesting story line that keeps this mess afloat!
Yes folks; the story had promise. Real promise. But somewhere between directors Gore Verbinski ideas, and producer Jerry Bruckheimer's ideas the story somehow merged 2 diffrent out looks with no real mediuem. The whole film felt like "Treasure Island" meets "The Fog"!
With a running time of two hours plus, "Pirates of the Caribbean" feels terribly flabby, even the over the top battle scenes are so drawn out we start to lose interest.
Depp's odd performance should probably make this film live on as a cult classic and become recognized by film buff's as a bad film that we love.
One word to describe "Pirates" is "BIZZARE"!