Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL 
|  4.5/5 stars  | 

REVIEW BY JOHN ULMER 

In its fullest, "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Curl" succeeds as entertainment. It is one of the great adventure films of this year, jam-packed with chills and thrills. It's a rousing swashbuckler with a great cast and a great story. But, ranking in at 143 minutes, it goes overboard on scenes a few times. Just a few.

When "Pirates of the Caribbean" first opened, my Website was bombarded with desperate letters from frenzied fans of the film, all asking me to post a script for the film. It is perhaps the most requested script I've ever had in my year-long experience as a script site Webmaster (wow, I get to capitalize the title). It's amazing what an impact a film such as this can have - and after seeing the movie, it's not too surprising why.

It stars Johnny Depp in the lead role as the infamous pirate Captain Jack Sparrow, the worst pirate the film's Good Bad Guy has ever heard of. "Ah, but you have heard of me," Jack says. Jack used to be the captain of a deadly ship named the Black Pearl, before a mutiny took place at the command of Barbosa (Geoffrey Rush), who left Jack for dead on an island where he drank rum for three days and got a permanent case of sea daze.

But Jack survived, and now with the help of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), he will track down Barbosa and claim his ship back. Will is not in it for the ship, however, but rather for the young girl, Elizabeth (Keira Knightley), who was kidnapped by Barbosa in hopes of removing a curse put upon him and his crew after they removed gold coins from a cursed treasure chest. By the moon of the light, Barbosa and his idiot crew turn into skeletons. They cannot die, they cannot feel pleasure. They are "cursed pirates."

First, they must restore all of the golden coins to the treasure chest, then pour the blood of a Turner over the stash of treasure. Captain Barbosa thinks that Elizabeth is the late Bootstrap Bill Turner's daughter, but he never had one -- his single child was a boy, and the boy is Will, who is coming to save Elizabeth from a doom that he himself should be facing more than anyone.

Confused? Don't be. When you watch the movie it will all make sense, because it just does.

The main element that carries along "Pirates of the Caribbean" well past its expiration date is the casting of Johnny Depp in the role of Jack Sparrow. In a constant drunken stupor and with a splendidly funny rough British accent, Depp has finally hit payday in a mainstream motion picture. He's been cast in cult favorites over the years, specifically those directed by Tim Burton ("Edward Scissorhands," "Ed Wood"), but he's been around since "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Platoon." He hasn't exactly gotten major recognition over the years, and though movie buffs know him by name, mainstream filmgoers probably wouldn't recognize him at first. Not now, however. Now everyone's jumping on the bandwagon. Depp, at forty, has finally gotten a mainstream break.

Also helping the film is Geoffrey Rush as Barbosa. He's a dastardly villain with bad teeth and, we can only assume, bad breath. He's good at being a bad guy, but because the film is rated PG-13, a big step forward for Disney, he isn't allowed to be quite as vicious as he probably would be. And, I can only assume, the rating prohibits him from taking advantage of poor Elizabeth while she is held captive aboard his ship.... And, for what it's worth, the young Keira Knightley ("Bend it Like Beckham") is beautiful in this movie. She's only 17, still naturally pretty, and the crew "painted cleavage" onto her to help market the film. I wonder how long they'll have to keep doing that -- I doubt if she'll be quite as *natural* by the time the sequels roll around, if you know what I mean.

The movie's score is by Klaus Badelt, who has been getting his big break lately with films such as "The Recruit." It's a good score that fits the film's tone of pirates. Pirates are everywhere in this film, and at one point a character remarks that it's good to be a pirate, or something like that. I just wonder: If that's true, why does Disney prohibit pirating of its films?

"Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" is one of the better entertainments of the year, helped primarily because of a great cast and witty script. But the character that will stay in your head long after this is over, more than any other character in the film (including Jonathan Pryce as Elizabeth's father, who I have not mentioned before now and I think I should have), is Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow. He's going to go down in the books as one of those famous film heroes. And what saves him from becoming another gung-ho hero is what helped Harrison Ford make Indiana Jones so likable: He's an apprehensive and cautious hero with wit and loads of dry humor and funny one-liners to spare. He's not the type of hero who is necessarily always looking out for the best because he wants to save the world, but rather because he knows it's sort of his duty to do so. And he does so with apprehension. It's a key to making a great screen hero, and Johnny Depp succeeds where I can only assume most modern action heroes would fail.

Let's just hope the rumored, upcoming back-to-back sequels don't sink to Davy Jones' Locker, eh?

Copyright, 2003, John Ulmer 

- John Ulmer 
Webmaster of The Movie Portal 
http://www.wiredonmovies.com/ 

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