I Was Really Surprised ...

Rating: 9/10 (27 July 2003)

The posters and previews made this movie look sort of cheesy, but it was actually quite a good movie. Very handsomely produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and good to great performances by all. Johnny Depp was really funny and Geoffrey Rush had a lot of fun with his role too. The writers (who also wrote SHREK and THE MASK OF ZORRO) gave this simple and chliched story life through witty dialogue and characters.
My biggest complaint was with Gore Verbinski's direction of the sword fight scenes. I think that he and his cinematographer tried to mask the mediocre choreography by quick cutting weird angles that obscure the action. However, Verbinski did a pretty good job on the ship battle scenes. That moonlight/skeleton effect was really cool. I'd love to see a making-of documentary on the DVD.
My Grade:
9 out of 10
P.S. We saw a preview for HAUNTED MANSION before the movie. It actually looked like it might be pretty cool.