Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl Critic Reviews

Pirates offers something for everyone: Bloom and Depp for the ladies, big action and Knightley for the men, self-aware gags for the postmodern crowd, Depp and Rush for fans of top-rank scenery chewing.Read the full review

It's a good thing that Geoffrey Rush and Johnny Depp are on hand to jack up the acting department. Their characters, two world-class goofballs, keep us interested even during entirely pointless swordfights. Read the full review

There may be nothing more fun for actors than experimental exaggeration, especially when filming on a Caribbean island. But there’s nothing that makes an audience feel less welcome than not being in on the joke.Read the full review

This noisy retread, a secondhand facsimile of a movie, is, except for the headache its boisterous sound level leaves you with, as forgettable as a bad day in the Disneyland parking lot. Read the full review

Oozes atmosphere. The humor keeps it from becoming too creepy, but there are still a few chills to be had.Read the full review

Depp swans through this swashbuckler with a scene-stealing gusto unseen since Marlon Brando in "Mutiny on the Bounty." He's comic dynamite, but this plodding, repetitive bore should walk the plank for timidly refusing to light his fuse. Read the full review

Eventually the concept buckles under the heavy blockbuster treatment, becoming a monotonous, repetitive spectacle of endless shipboard sword fights and pirate ghosts in the moonlight. Read the full review

Pirates is OK, in patches even better.Read the full review

The large cast, costumed and made up as filthy scalawags and sinister buccaneers, gives tremendous energy to every scene. Read the full review