This said, the story is irredeemably absurd from beginning to end!
Unless you've miraculously missed all the trailers, magazines and other write-ups on the Net, you'll know that the curse has turned the crew of the pirate ship into the Undead, suitably horrible by moonlight with the rotting flesh hanging from their bones.
The villainous Barbossa (Rush) can undo this ancient Aztec (but of course) curse (official site; Flash) only by reuniting stolen treasures and, so he believes, liberally spraying the lot with Elizabeth's blood.
Almost every imaginable cliché is here and relished to the full; I will happily do so again. Schwarzenegger's a has-been, Orlando Bloom has got real style! That there's no point in His Majesty's Royal Navy doing ferocious battle with pirates who can't be killed is beside the point. That a most entertaining Johnny Depp and a sexy Keira Knightley walk bedraggled up a beach to get thoroughly drunk on it (and add to an already ponderous list of transgressions at Screen It! (parental review, one of my more perverse pleasures) bothers me not a jot. That Disney puts its name, with producer Jerry Bruckenheimer, to crime as justifiable action appeals to my sense of subversion.
That by the end, disbelief has not only been stretched beyond breaking point but walked the plank is one of the film's many virtues.
Director Gore Verbinski (last stop, 'The Ring') handles his cast and blockbuster budget material with such panache, helped by a noisy musical score attributed to so many people you don't know who to credit, that 'Pirates of the Caribbean' is pure family rubbish to be thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish.
Even if you think you got all your critical faculties into the cinema, they'll soon be blasted away intact. Or you're tougher than I am. An easy 8/10.
Article comments
1 - Ryan
Good review, but you mixed up Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp.
Johnny Depp is the pirate Jack Sparrow, Orlando Bloom is the blacksmith's apprentice. Huge difference between the two.
2 - taliesin
I squirm at sword-point.
The man is, of course, absolutely right.
La vache! A silly mistake like that, even after Marianne and I had discussed elfin ears and absence thereof.
Thanks for your remark on the rest.