Logic and teeth-grinding endurance aside, “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” is an entertaining mess trapped inside an overlong timeframe and a concept reeking of stale logic.

There wouldn’t be much to complain about if this movie wasn’t based on a theme park ride, nor if Jerry Bruckheimer, who was behind cheesy crowd pleasers such as “Con Air” and “Armageddon,” didn’t produce it.

The movie would not be so negatively preconceived if it weren’t directed by Gore Verbinski, who helmed “The Ring,” the frame-for-frame rip-off of the Japanese thriller “Ringu,” and the Brad Pitt-Julia Roberts snoozer “The Mexican.”

Redeemable factors take form: “Pirates of the Caribbean” is worth seeing if you’re in the mood for a big-budget swashbuckling pirate adventure.

Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) is a dandy of a pirate who teams up with Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) to rescue a governor’s daughter (Keira Knightley) from Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), who has plans to use her blood to reverse the curse that has left him and his crew as ghostly pirates.

The questions to the description above are mostly answered, in no short detail, by the film’s end. “Pirates of the Caribbean” is a movie that goes from scene to scene solely to entertain you — and for the most part, it does — but it overstays its welcome about a half-hour too long.

The cast is uniformly good in their performances: Depp and Rush play into their goofy pirate personas, enhancing stereotypes and being funny as hell in the process.

Bloom is convincing as the young, thoughtless scamp out to save the day, while Knightley not only captivates with her stunning attractiveness, but also as a bold and sassy dame with a lot of guts.

Action scenes, from deliberate, outstanding boat battles to repetitive sword duels, are satisfying but lacking when viewed in context with the story. It seems silly to me that for the better majority of this movie, the “good guys” are fighting an unstoppable force — pirates who cannot die because of the title’s namesake.

The problems of Verbinski’s earlier films come into play here: Despite an attractive cast and a glossy surface, “The Ring” and “The Mexican” are both anti-climactic and overlong. “Pirates of the Caribbean” suffers the same ordeal: No matter how action-packed, sexy or constantly humorous this film is, the one-stop shop assault on the senses grows weary with pacing.

“Pirates of the Caribbean” is a lot of fun if you allow it, though for your choice of alternative movie-going experiences, there’s certainly a lot better of movies playing.

After all, this film’s tagline is “prepare to be blown out of the water.”

By the end of it, you may have wished you were blown out of your seat.

— Ryan Curell