I suddenly have a desire for apples...
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Director: Gore Verbinski
Starring: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Geoffrey Rush, Jonathan Pryce
2003
Wait, Disney is making a movie… based on their Pirates of the Caribbean RIDE? A RIDE? At an amusement park? I mean, it’s a fun ride, definitely a good time, and a must-ride if I’m ever in Disneyworld, but come on… it’s a three minute amusement park ride. What the heck is Disney thinking, making a movie out of this?
All these thoughts I kept repeating to myself when I first heard about this film. Then I saw it.
I love this movie. I really really really love this movie. (The sequels on the other hand… well, let’s just pretend that there are no sequels.) This movie is so much fun, so entertaining, such a great, rollicking roller coaster ride, you can’t help but have a good time. A fantastic popcorn film if there ever was one.
The strength of the film is its quality. This is Disney, after all, and they committed whole hog to making the best damn pirate movie Hollywood had made in ten years. Given that Hollywood hadn’t made a pirate film in ten years didn’t exactly mean the bar was set high, but Disney was undeterred. We’re going to make a great pirate film, they said, with fantastic sets, amazing costumes, and crazy awesome special effects. Not only that, they continued, we’re going to have a coherent and cogent script, a truly unique and memorable musical score, and coax amazing performances out of a first rate cast. Then we’ll fill the film with sly references to the original ride to entertain the grown-up Disneyland and Disneyworld fans in the audience. After that, we’ll sit back and watch the bucks roll in!
The story is highly creative. What appears to be a fairly straightforward revenge tale of one pirate trying to get back at another pirate is made more involving and more enjoying by adding in a great tale of a pirate curse, a supernatural curse, that allows for the special effects artists to stretch themselves. The supernatural curse also provides some highly inventive twists and turns in the story that keep you guessing throughout. The romantic plotline involving Elizabeth Swann, the governor’s daughter, (Knightley) and Will Turner, the lowly blacksmith, (Bloom) is predictable in its development - how ever will they overcome their differences in status! - but, I admit, as a girl, it is nice to have a bit of bodice-ripping in there along with the swashbuckling of the rest of the story.
Captain Jack Sparrow (Depp) is the heart of the movie. Depp’s performance was rightly recognized by the Oscars that year, garnering him a nomination for a role from a summer blockbuster, something the Academy rarely ever does. Since then, Cap’n Jack has taken on a life of his own, being in all of the sequels and now being the major force for the production of additional Pirates sequels. It’s an extreme performance, to be sure, but Depp manages to layer it with an ample dose of subtlety as well. In between all the crazy mannerisms and mad mutterings, Jack Sparrow - excuse me, CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow - is no fool. He is thinking and scheming and conniving, wondering how he can get out of this situation, deciding how he can take control of that situation. It’s this layering, these nuances, that make Depp’s performance noteworthy. All this also means that you never quite know what Sparrow is thinking. Whose side is he on? Why does he want the Pearl? Is he really in league with Barbossa? Will he turn on Will and Elizabeth? Hey, was he just HITTING on Elizabeth? Depp keeps you on your toes in his performance. Sparrow is truly unpredictable. Anyone can be completely crazy. It’s the fact that Depp shows the sanity underneath all the heaping layers of insanity that makes his performance truly wonderful.
Depp’s performance alone makes this film tremendously watchable, but luckily, the rest of the leads turn in fantastic feats as well. Knightley and Bloom, suffering from having the least interesting and most predictable characters, have perfectly acceptable turns, but Geoffrey Rush as the villainous Barbossa and Pryce as the rather hapless Governor Swann are priceless. Rush takes every opportunity to chew the scenery and spit it back out, relishing his turn as a completely over the top villain. More known for his work in indie films or intense dramas, I almost wonder if it wasn’t a relief to him to have some fun with a campy summer popcorn flick. Pryce, similarly, seems to enjoy simply have to walk around and look pompous and blustering; his “big fight scene” against a pirate hand is great fun, especially after the pirates steal his wig.
The swordfights - oh my, but the swordfights are amazing. Why? Bob Anderson. The dude is 88 years old, but when he dies, the likelihood of having a breathtaking swordfight sequence in a movie will decrease sharply. Responsible for the epic and famous swordfights in Star Wars, The Princess Bride, and The Lord of the Rings, producers wisely sought out the best when they wanted to choreograph a classic Errol Flynn style pirate movie swordfight. Most fun are the fights between Sparrow and Turner at the beginning in the blacksmith’s shop, and at the end between Barbossa and Sparrow in the cave. These fights are like elegant dances with a blade, each partner gracefully sparring and parrying back and forth. It’s not something you see a lot in films nowadays; a good swordfight is something to savor, and Pirates of the Caribbean can produce the goods.
Props must be paid to Klaus Badelt’s film score. It is SO much fun. Most films are lucky if they come up with one memorable melody, one tune with which they’re associated. Badelt’s score has at least four, maybe five. From the opening strains as Captain Jack sails into port on his hapless vessel, to the sinister strains of the ghost pirate ship, to the rollicking romp of the final sword fight, the music is simply superb. I was fortunate enough to play a medley from this film in my community band (don’t laugh, I’m a clarinetist) a number of years ago, and everyone had a blast playing that piece. We had FUN playing that piece. The music is downright fun. On reflection, I’m shocked I don’t own the original soundtrack. Hm… must add to wishlist…
Click to viewExcellent video that highlights the wonderful music from the film.
I admit that my taste in film can be pretty darn high-falutin’. I like pretentious movies, I do. I love Ingmar Bergman’s deeply philosophical meditations on life, death, and religion. I adore the emotionally complex family dramas to come out of Japan in the 1950s. But DAMMIT, I love this movie. It’s not a complicated film. It doesn’t push the boundaries of film. But it’s endless fun from beginning to end. The film taps on all of the boundless joy and spectacle of the great Errol Flynn swashbuckling epics of the thirties and forties and updates it with a more modern story and sensibility. When done well, pirate movies will always be a big draw, and somehow, a movie based on an amusement park ride does it well. If, for some reason, you’ve been living under a rock in the past five years and haven’t seen it, remedy that situation immediately. If you have seen it before, do yourself a favor and pop some popcorn and settle in for a great, classic Saturday night romp. On a side note, on the original DVD release, the commentary with Keira Knightley and Jack Davenport (the tremendously amusing Commodore Norrington) is a giggle a minute.