s with most of the other older reviews, this one was written before I began issuing categorized review scores. Therefore, the following scores were added in when this page was created, in July 2004, after the initial movie review was written in July 2003. I've added several paragraphs to the review along with the scores below, since my initial coverage of it came on the same day that I wrote about Terminator 3, and I had very little to say about Pirates.

I have a bit more to say about it now, having seen and enjoyed it again on DVD, but the 2nd viewing did not change my initial "pretty good, but nothing amazing" reaction. I was less annoyed by the constant plot flipping and flopping, at least, and could appreciate the gorgeous scenery and tropical oceans more.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl
Script/Story: 7
Acting/Casting: 7
Action: 6
Comedy: 6
Eye Candy: 8
Fun Factor: 7
Replayability: 7
Overall: 7

This is one of the most consistent review scores I've ever produced, but that's just how the movie was, to me. Consistently good, never great, but never really bad either. I'm sure the sequel will wobble up and down the scale quite a bit more. Mostly down, as almost all sequels do.

As for Pirates of the Caribbean, I was underwhelmed.  It was cute in places, had some good characters and special effects and sets, the plot was clever with all the double crossing and humor, but I think it was a bit too light for my taste.  There were casualties, but only to silly unimportant characters.  There were several executions, but it always seemed clear that the heroic character about to be executed would escape in the nick of time.  There were evil bad guys, but it was pretty clear they'd never really do anything that bad to anyone important.  Basically, it was a cliff hanger where the cliffs never seemed very high, and I knew there were pillows at the bottom, just in case.

I liked the idea of it, and it looked great, but there was no real weight or menace to anything in it.  The bad guys weren't really that bad, the good guys weren't really that good, and even the annoying characters had their redeeming qualities. I suppose all of that is a good indication why it's such a big hit and most audiences are really loving it, but I guess I just wanted more adult of a movie.

I didn't dislike it, but there wasn't anything in it I would want to see again; no big action scenes or awesome stunt shots.  The best things overall are the acting performances, with Johnny Depp doing a really good job, most of the time, and Orlando Bloom and the cute chickie also filling their roles well.  The semi-evil pirate captain is pretty good also; he at least does what you want him to do, though I'd have liked him to be a lot more evil and ruthless. He threatens murders aplenty, but like everything else in the movie, his bark is a lot worse than his bite, and nothing bad every really happens.

This movie would have been greatly improved by an R rating, since then they could have had the pirates be really bad, instead of just harmlessly menacing. The fights and battles could have had more impact with realistic deaths and more feel of war to them, and so on. Of course it would have then been too gross (real) for a lot of viewers, kids couldn't have gone to see it by themselves, and it would have made made maybe half as much money. Which goes some distance towards explaining why box office and critical mass so seldom overlap. 

To make a weak analogy, Pirates reminded me a bit of Spider Man. Though Pirates was much more entertaining overall, they're similar in that both were pretty better than the average action summer movie, but not great, and not possessed of any great scenes. Great action movies like Silence of the Lambs and Lord of the Rings I can happily watch any time. Good to mediocre action movies like Terminator 2 and Kiss of the Dragon and Matrix 2 aren't worth watching in their entirety, but have various action sequences that are good enough to skip through the film and just watch them.

Pirates and Spider Man come in between, where they're not so good that you'll watch them over and over again, and they don't have any great action scenes that you'll fast forward through. So I enjoyed them both, Pirates more than Spider Man, but I have no idea if I'll ever see either of them again.

Oddly enough, Malaya liked Pirates a lot, far more than I did, and far more than she liked T3.  Her explanation was that it was all about expectations.  She really wanted T3 to be great since she loved T2, and when they put the hated Claire Danes in it she was disillusioned, and then there were lots of dumb things early on in T3, she got turned off and it was all downhill from there.  While she expected Pirates to be dumb and not very good, and when it was pretty good and relatively smart, she really got into things.

I think I will be interested in seeing a Pirates 2, even though I doubt it will be as good as the first one, and even though I didn't think the first one was that good.  I'll be interested to see how the plot goes; if they could work in half as many double crosses and clever plot elements as the first one had.  They're starting production on it, seeing how big the box office and reviews were for the first one, so we'll find out in a couple of years.

I'm not so eager to see it that I'll be there opening night, and I'll definitely see the reviews before I commit to attending it, but I'm curious.

December 11, 2003

The rollicking but exhausting pirates is about a half hour too log (with at least one too many numbing Bruckhimerian set pieces) but thankfully, at home you can pause the bombast to get your sea legs and take an aspirin.

Impudence/Hate (I)

• four uses of the three/four letter word vocabulary (though used literally in accordance with proper definitions, they were used more as an excuse to add them)
• adolescent deceit
• buying favor
• lie to protect identity
• bird defecation on shoulder

Ahh yes, "adolescent deceit." It's truly a sin before the eyes of Baby Jesus when a movie doesn't get an "R" rating with that sort of foulness in it.  Not to mention a joke about a parrot shitting on someone's shoulder.  That's certainly enough to turn a child to heroin abuse then and there.

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