This is by far the worst adaption ever made!
I was looking forward to this! The great cast (Glenister, Penry-Jones, Mays, Izzard) should have guaranteed a great movie. Well, it didn't!
Firstly, what about the historical inaccuracies? Granted, they probably couldn't find a seaworthy ship from the proper era, but what about the props? Can't be to hard to find guns from that era instead of rummaging through Sharpe's prop-box.
As well, what about the non-europeans? Granted, there was the odd black fellow in piracy, but surely not on a merchant ship and definitely not as first mate! And the guys from asia? Chinese, malayan, melanesian? How did they find there way to Bristol? And back to the ship: It seems that ever since Pirates of the Caribbean writers seem to think that ships requiring a crew from at least 50 (in this movie) or 200 (PotC) can just as well be sailed by one or two fellows.
And then the characters: Why, why in god's name, change them all? They have nothing to do with the novel but are just modern cliches slapped on the original characters. The rich landowner has, of course, to be a greedy, immoral bastard, because rich people are like that! The doctor is a drunkard and a coward, and then suddenly changes his character 180° degrees, so that the audience can see, that every man can change for the better when he needs to.
Long John is just a poor, misunderstood philosopher who wants nothing more than to live a life without worries, married to his sweetheart whom he saved from prostitution. Nevermind the scores of people he killed.
Even the badest badass in this movie, Israel Hands, is really only a victim, as he was pressed into service as a boy and thus can't really be held responsible for his actions.
Oh, nearly forgot: Which idiot built that stronghold five feet from the sea? The pirates really only had to bring their ship in just a little bit closer and a broadside would have blown that place to kingdom come and saved us from suffering through this sorry efforts ending.
=== SPOILERS FROM HERE ===
Well, the ending. After killing and maiming, being killed and being maimed, young Jim suddenly decides to throw the whole goddam treasure overboard, not thinking about the debt his mother has or that they both will probably end up in the poor house or as slaves in the colonies. And the rest actually helped him. The helmsman will stay a helmsman for the rest of his life, the poor doctor won't get to marry Jim's mom and the skipper won't be able to pay the rent on his house as he doesn't get paid for that journey.
At least, that's what would happen IRL, though this movie seems to be teaching us, that throwing money away is a good thing, because you'll get money from somewhere else anyway. Sounds to be inspired by the Euro crisis.
Oh yes, and after they dropped the treasure into the waves, the captain said "let's sail to Jamaica and crew up". Someone should have spoken up and said: "Uhm, skipper, we just threw all our gold overboard. Gonna be hard finding hands of we can't pay 'em! Arr!"