Posted by Jack Spencer Jr at ua3-p24.dreamscape.com on July 17, 2003 at 02:23:57:
We've come to expect more from a movie based on an amusement park ride.
I don't know why, but I found Pirates of the Carribean: the Curse of the Black Pearl unsatisfying. I didn't dislike it, but I sure as hell didn't like it. This is annoying because I should have. I just didn't.
I cannot fully articulate why. Part of it may be because I found myself agreeing with Roeper of all people. Elsewhere I had read that he said the movie had too much action. Ridiculous, I thought, until I saw the movie. There is too much action.
Well, too much action isn't the phrase for it. It has too much boring action. Allow me to explain, and I won't be revealing anything that you would see in the trailers.
The story involves ghost pirates (or is it pirate ghosts?). A scurvy crew who cannot be killed and moonlight reveals how gross they are. Whee! So when they're going to town, there is no suspense in the big fight scene. We know the pirates cannot be killed. The will just keep going, killing as many of the good guys as possible until they're stopped. This all happens in the moonlight so Disney can flex its CGI muscles so it's all happening in pale blue light with dense shadows. Basically it was very hard to see what was going on. Often I had trouble telling the living British soldier for the near-skeletal ghost. And what was going on was just business eating up screen time. It was the equilvelent of snow or white noise. I hate agreeing with Roeper.
Also, everyone's in love with Jonny Depp's performance. Everyone but me. Might as well leave it there.