Fun, but with a distinctly modern lack of clarity

Rating: Null/10 (27 December 2004)

"Pirates of the Caribbean" is fun, but it is Johnny Depp's great performance as Captain Jack Sparrow that holds the thing together, not any skill in storytelling on the part of the filmmakers. You have to see this thing twice to understand the convoluted plot and a good four or five times to even catch on to many of the poorly presented running gags (how long did it take you to get the "wooden" eyeball gag? Be honest). I'd bet my life savings that not a single person who saw this movie "cold" (without reading a plot summary first) understood what the f was going on until they'd discussed it with someone or seen it again. The screenplay is partly to blame, continually doling out necessary information well after we would have really cared (Oh, THAT'S why they kidnapped Keira Knightly--wish I'd known that half an hour ago). But even though the story is convoluted in a way that only contemporary movies seem to manage, the problems aren't necessarily with the script. This same screenplay could have been filmed and all the story points and gags could have been made crystal clear without changing a word. The main problem here is that we have yet another TV commercial/music video director who has been given the reins of a huge-budget flick without ever having proved he/she can actually tell a story. The director here does put some great images up on the screen, and a few very good bits of business make it as well. But fun performances, great set design, great sfx, make up, etc don't add up to a great movie if the story is incomprehensible. And it's not just the story as a whole I'm talking about, it's tiny bits of storytelling that fail, like the previously mentioned wooden eyeball joke. This director does not know how to visually emphasize the proper elements to tell a visual story. All he is capable of is making it all look either pretty, or loud (or both). And I'll give this to the director--he does get the look of a pirate movie right. SO, annoying as the directorial shortcoming are, the film still ends up being fun. But it could have been SO much better in the hands of a director more experienced in storytelling.