I don't know why the two words "pirate movie" have become the kiss of death for cinematic success. Pirate stories have everything -- elaborately silly period costumes, scary-looking guys with eye patches saying "Arrrrrr....", hidden treasure, swashbuckling sword fights, spunky-yet-feminine damsels popping out of their corsets, antiheroes, government bad guys -- all the stuff that makes for a truly ripping yarn. Yet mention "pirate movie" to most people, and the first thing to come to mind is Cutthroat Island.

'nuff said, unless your name is Jerry Bruckheimer, whose stock in trade is Really Big Movies made on Really Big Budgets starring Really Big Names in Really Preposterous Roles. Maybe it's just his age; maybe it's laying off the white powder, maybe it's the fact that the phrase "A Jerry Bruckheimer Production of a Michael Bay Film" is the film critic's equivalent of "You may feel some mild discomfort". But if PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL is any indication, Bruckheimer may just have finally gotten the balance of Fun and Filmmaking right.

Does it really matter what the plot of PIRATES is? It's based on a theme park ride, for God's sake! Suffice it to say that PIRATES is a pastiche of every pirate movie cliche in the book, with elements of ghost stories, romance novels and some gloriously snarky tributes to other adventure films tossed in for spice. The gorgeous yet spunky Elizabeth Swann, all but promised by her father (Jonathan Pryce) to some forgettable Her Majesty's Service flack, really loves the earnest-yet-poor blacksmith Will Turner (Orlando Bloom). She is kidnapped by pirates led by the nefarious Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), rescuers Turner and Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), who has his own bone to pick with Barbossa, in hot pursuit.

But who cares about the story? What we go to see a pirate movie for is adventure, and PIRATES is true to its theme park roots by packing almost non-stop adventure into its nearly two and a half hours of running time -- swordfights and plank walking and undead pirates and Geoffrey Rush stopping just this side of chewing the scenery, and Keira Knightley, who looks like the love child of Kate Winslet and Helena Bonham-Carter; being romanced by Orlando Bloom -- who could ask for anything more?

Well, a lot, actually, because despite Rush's recently-found flair for comedy, and Knightley's comely visage, the film is really only alive when Johnny Depp is on the screen. For while Orlando Bloom, the Elven boytoy du jour whose flaxen locks and leaps onto horseback in the Lord of the Rings movies have propelled him to stardom, is the recipient of all the hype, he has a curious lack of screen charisma beyond his pretty face; certainly when compared to Depp's bizarro performance. Bloom certainly has more than a passing resemblance to Errol Flynn here, but with almost none of Flynn's charisma. The "Wow" factor belongs to Depp's obviously self-created portrayal of Jack Sparrow as Keith Richard at the West Village Halloween parade. Depp has the Keith Richard bit down pat, from the George Hamiltonian fake tan, to the exaggerated eyeliner, to the almost unintelligible speech, to the strange hand movements that all by themselves constitute an advertisement for This Is Your Brain On Drugs Any Questions. His comic timing is impeccable, he tosses off his lines with the aplomb that only someone with as career as strange and wonderful as his can do. During a scene in which Jack Sparrow is marooned on an obviously tropical island with The Lovely Elizabeth and a few dozen casks of rum, you're hoping he, not the callow and bland Will Turner, gets the girl. Somehow I don't think this is what the director intended.

The marketers at Disney may have wanted to sell PIRATES as an action/adventure/romance, but in casting perhaps the greatest character actor of his generation in what's supposed to be the Funny Sidekick role, director Gore Verbinski almost turns this thing into an art flick. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL overcomes the curse of Cutthroat Island with its capable direction by Gore Verbinski, beautiful cinematography by Dariusz Wolski, and great comedic timing by its surprising and deft cast.

-- Jill Cozzi

Review text copyright © 2003 Jill Cozzi and Mixed Reviews. All rights reserved. Reproduction of text in whole or in part in any form or in any medium without express written permission of Mixed Reviews or the author is prohibited.

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