Average Disney adventure

Rating: 4/10 (18 August 2003)

Average action adventure Disney yarn is watchable mainly due to good performances by Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and the lovely Keira Knightley.
It's the tale of a pirate ship called the Black Pearl, once captained by the eccentric Depp, whose new captain  Geoffrey Rush is looking for a pirate medallion that ends up in the hands of Knightley, the daughter a rich governor (Jonathan Pryce). Throw in Bloom as the dashing hero with a sketchy past and a major crush on Knightley, and you've got yourself a special effects ridden harmless piece of entertainment. Downsides are too many silly additional characters, who will only be of interest to very young viewers, and at 143 minutes, its far too long - they could have cut out about half an hour of footage off at least.
Nice to see a fairly original idea through, although I hear it is based on a computer game(?) or something (I may be wrong), instead of the countless sequels that have cluttered up the cinemas over the past year or so.
..saying that, no doubt there will be a `Pirates of the Caribbean 2' through, sooner rather than later!!