What a mess!

Rating: Null/10 (21 July 2003)

The film is a complete mess!
I believe much of the problem with the film lies with the screenwriters and director Gore Verbinski, who seem to be struggling to please Disney while insisting on violence and gore (pardon the pun). The tone of the film vacillates between swashbuckling adventure and lurid ghost story, achieving neither suspense nor horror. Instead, the film half heartedly plods along with some tedious dialogue and obvious lapses of narrative logic, occasionally eleviated only by amusing special effects.
One of the major problems with the film seems to be dialogue that sticks out like a sore thumb. In addition to the rather stilted language (especially in the earlier portions of the film), the film is also hampered with a script that begs for a few more rewrites.
(POSSIBLE SPOILER COMING UP - BUT IT IS NOT REALLY A SPOILER SINCE THE FILM SPOILS IT FOR ITSELF) There are many lapses of logic in the plotline that took me out of the film. Among them: The film is ambivalent in dealing with the pirates. When it becomes clear that only a little blood (not a death sacrifice) would revive the cursed pirates, one wonders why the leads would not simply consider getting these pirates out of their hair by simply acquiescing and getting on with their petty lives. Again, when it is revealed midway through the film that the pirates cannot be killed, the rather lengthy fight scenes that follow suddenly become labored and accessive, and the gore accompanied with that smacks of gratuitousness. It is as if the air that kept the film buoyant till then was suddenly sucked out, and the film, like many of the ships in the film, begins to sink.

The characters in the film are also not the most interesting despite gallant attempts at making them so. Jonathan Pryce is mired line after painful line, by hackneyed dialogue. Kiera Knightley's Elizabeth is a pretty face but lacks the spunk, character and hootzpah that made Karen Allen's damsel in distress so appealing and unpredictable in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Orlando Bloom's William, while gallant, fails to transcend stereotype. Even Geoffrey Rush's pirate fails to surprise or intrigue. Perhaps the only person that comes rather unscathed in this debacle is Johnny Depp, who has made a career of making interesting (if unsuccessful or unconvincing) choices. Despite common belief, Depp's forte is not in being a talented or transformational actor. Depp's performances do not hold the gravitas or subtlety like a Brando, a Pacino or a Deniro. Rather, Depp's strength is in the courage and the curiosity of his choices which has earned him the respect as a risk-taker, rather than an excellent actor. Having said that, Depp, whose accent is not all convincing, and whose casting in the part is not at all perfect, winds up inadvertently being the most interesting in an otherwise flaccid film.
Save your ten bucks for Indy 4.