Made my summer

Rating: 10/10 (10 July 2003)

I'm the first person to cheer a movie that successfully enters the realm of "art" with deep, fulfilling plots, but when did being simply entertaining become something to apologize for?
POTC succeeds as pure escapist fun on every level possible. I watched the movie in a theater full of a fairly mixed audience, ranging from around 9-10 to 50, and everyone seemed to have a great time. Being the parent of an 11-year-old myself, I can say that it's possible that more easily frightened children might have issues, but mine ate it up and wanted to turn right back around and see it again.
Unlike some, I had no problem with the length of the film. Frankly, any film with a running time over 100 minutes gets a bonus point from me these days, regardless of how terrible it may turn out to be. Not having a stunted attention span myself, I am generally offended at the idea of paying the same amount for a 90 minute piece of fluff that I would for a 3-hour epic. I was glad to see that the film was longer, and I barely noticed the time passing at all.
But enough of the soapbox: POTC was funny, exciting, engaging, and just plain enjoyable. Well worth seeing on the big screen (and worth seeing several times, in my opinion).