Copyright © 2003 by Tony Medley

 If you think the title is long, wait until you see the movie.  At two hours, 23 minutes running time, a good guy captured by pirates should pray for a plank to walk that’s this long.  Gone with the Wind, which covered the Civil War and its aftermath, was only 55 minutes longer. Although you might find it hard to believe as you’re sitting through it, it does end eventually, and the proof is that I am actually sitting here writing this review.

Johnny Depp plays a constantly inebriated pirate captain (Jack Sparrow) in this tongue-in-cheek sendup of pirate movies.  Did we really need a sendup of pirate movies?  When’s the last time you saw one?  Who was in it?  Burt Lancaster?  Gene Kelly?  Errol Flynn?  What, Hollywood has nothing better to do than spoof a genre that’s been dead for fifty years?

 And, please, if you’re going to do a spoof, make it intelligent.  People it with good actors.  Give it a good script.  Give it a story, for heaven’s sake.  Alas, Disney/Jerry Bruckheimer did none of these.  Oh, there are a couple of guys, Geoffrey Rush, who plays the dastardly Captain Barbossa, and another guy, who do pale imitations of Robert Newton as Long John Silver in Treasure Island, circa 1950, the quintessential cinematic pirate.  But, like this movie, they fall way, way short of Newton’s genius. 

 In the unlikely event that you still want to see this, I won’t ruin it for you by telling the story (that’s a joke, son).  There’s Hitchcock’s mainstay, the McGuffin that the pirates need, and it’s all pretty silly, but that’s OK because this is a farce (and I don’t use that as a term of opprobrium; it’s meant to be a farce). But I will warn you that, except for Depp and Rush, the acting’s mediocre at best.  Keira Knightly, who did a workmanlike job in Bend it Like Beckham is mightily miscast here as the gorgeous damsel in distress, Elizabeth Swann.  She’s not gorgeous enough (she’s not gorgeous, period).  And the lines she’s given would put any actress to the test.  Depp’s besotted Captain Sparrow starts out humorous, but finally becomes tiresome.  I’m also offended by vacuous filmmakers who think it’s funny to show the harmless drunk.  Alcoholism is no joke, folks, and movies like this (and the worst of the loveable drunk genre, Arthur) trivialize a serious problem.  Hollywood, however, loves drugs; you’re not gonna breathe much if you hold your breath until Hollywood takes a stand against drug use.  Even though we don’t see him taking a drink until near the longed-for end, Sparrow’s constantly drunk, even when he’s locked away in jail.

 This has a lot of mindless violence.  But that’s what you would expect in a pirate movie, unless it’s The Pirates of Penzance. Here people keep fighting dead people who can’t be killed.  They knew they were dead going in.  What’s the point?  And the fights take up about the last seven hours (OK, it just seemed like seven hours) of the movie.  One fight after another between a man and a skeleton.  Then there’s a fight between two skeletons.  There apparently aren’t any Basil Rathbones left in Hollywood because all the sword fighting is shot with Chicago-like quick cuts so you can’t see if any of these hunks can actually handle a sword.

 This is apparently a big hit if you judge by numbers.  The only way I can explain this is to postulate that watching this after sitting through Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, Legally Blonde 2, and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is akin to the relief you feel when someone stops hitting you over the head with a hammer and starts pinching you.  It’s good only in comparison with what came before.

 July 14, 2003

 The End

top