Best summer entertainment movie since...

Rating: 10/10 (26 July 2003)

Pirates of the Caribbean is one of those rare films that gets better the more times its viewed. In fact it seems deliberately designed for repeat viewings, so dense is the amount of information packed into what I found to be an incredibly short two and a half hours. It may not be an intellectual piece, but it's certainly one of the more intelligently created films that I've seen. Perhaps its this denseness of information that's caused various critics to complain about plot holes because it does get to the point that you blink and you've missed something. Not that the film cannot be enjoyed without following every single explanation, but those critics determined to nitpick will erroneously find something to complain about. Certainly if they're unwilling to dig deep enough - and with a summer entertainment flick like Pirates, who would think that you needed to dig deep?
On the substance of the film itself, watching Pirates is the most fun I've had in the cinema since... actually, I'm not sure when the last time was that I enjoyed a film this much. Johnny Depp's performance stands held and shoulders above pretty much every action hero to grace the screen. His entrance alone will become one of those shots thats played alongside Gene Kelly singing in the rain, the Death Star blowing up, Julie Andrews singing in the mountains and Indiana Jones running from that boulder. I've seen the film four times, and now I don't laugh when I see it, I start laughing about five minutes before (much to the annoyance of the rest of the audience).
The rest of the cast are pretty good too - a stand-out performance from Geoffrey Rush, solid work from Orlando Bloom, (the gorgeous) Keira Knightley, Jack Davenport, Jonathan Pryce and the host of minor players. The script is witty, clever and imaginative, while also still managing to pack in every convention of pirate movies under the sun - but then what else would you expect from Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio who wrote Shrek, The Mask of Zorro, and apparently Disney's Aladdin. And then Gore Verbinski's able direction manages to create a look that's both modern and classical at the same time.
The only downside to the whole thing is the musical score. Much as Klaus Badelt (et al) produces some decent music to match the pictures, the music does sound derivative, it lacks a decent hero's theme (something along the lines of the Indiana Jones theme), and probably would have sounded much better if it had been written by Alan Silvestri. But that's a minor complaint in a film that actually makes me think that there's hope for the summer blockbuster.