If you like Johnny Depp, you'll love Johnny Depp in this flick.

Rating: 6/10 (30 August 2004)

Well, I finally got around to seeing this because I continue to hear such rave reviews and decided they can't be all wrong.
Turns out, I was wrong: this movie bored me bored me bored me. By the time the movie was half-over, I began waiting impatiently for the smallest sighting of Johnny Depp - any scene he was in was incredible: his acting was genius, his costume was perfect, and his Captain Jack Sparrow consumed him. During his appearances, the scenes were understandable, sensible (for a quirky Pirate movie), and extremely entertaining; I laughed aloud almost every time he was on screen.
Unfortunately, if he was not involved in a scene, it was guaranteed to be confusing and boring. Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush were the only actors whose lines could be understood the first time listening, I felt. I saw this on DVD with the convenience of the life-saving remote control to rewind when I couldn't get it. How did theater-goers manage?? Everyone else spoke too fast! I found myself rewinding many of Kiera Knightley and Orlando Bloom's lines, along with a few of the pirates. What's up with that? Why the frenetic spewing of lines? Depp's and Rush's words flowed from them as though part of their being, their essence. Masters, they are.
The story unnecessarily twisted back and forth - trust or don't trust, honesty or dishonesty, honor or betrayal - it went from one extreme to the other like the audience was in a secret attempt by the writers to break the Guinness Record for yo-yoing. Too much work for the audience, for too little payoff, I say; it was exhausting. I am guessing that the ride in the park is similar: back and forth and back and forth, just to the point of breaking "the fine line," you know, when you are just about to throw up? Now that I think of it, the actors' quality of performances yo-yoed from scene to scene as well. Up with Depp, down with Bloom. Up and down, up and down. It could have ended far sooner than it had.
And the special effects, while impressive programming for video games and home entertainment centers, also did nothing for me when substituting skeletons for fleshy humans in this movie. I found the graphics an answer to the laziness in not using real humans in makeup and costume. They looked incredibly costumed and made up as human pirates, why not try the same technique for the immortal pirates? I thought it was kitschy and a cop-out.
Johnny Depp outperformed everyone in this movie, including the writers and director. Other than Rush, the only others who performed on nearly the same level were the two goofballs trying to prevent him from docking, and later holding the flag during the execution scene.
6/10