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movie review - Pirates of the Caribbean

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

This is a pirate flick set in the caribbean. But you knew that from the title. What you don't learn from the trailers - and what certainly isn't evident in the reviews this movie has been getting - is that it's actually worth watching. It doesn't even take all that much suspended disbelief, which is a feat given that half the cast turn into cursed skeletons whenever they pass into moonlight.

I think the thing that makes it work is that Johnny Depp is given a fairly free reign to make a worthwhile - if not entirely sympathetic - character around which the movie can revolve, and he does so quite ably. With the two young lovers to drive the plot and a cast of standard-issue pirates, guards, governers and naval men to round things out, it's quite an entertaining flick.

And as a friend pointed out, the CGI in this movie is particularly astonishing. Despite the fact that most of it revolves around getting skeletons into the flick, the net result is one of seamless 'realism' in action and detail. Sort of the polar opposite of the wonky T-whatever in the latest Terminator flick.

Recommended.