Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
The Cast
Johnny Depp .... Jack Sparrow
Geoffrey Rush .... Barbossa
Orlando Bloom .... Will Turner
Keira Knightley .... Elizabeth Swann
Jack Davenport .... Norrington
Jonathan Pryce .... Governor Weatherby Swann
Lee Arenberg .... Pintel
Mackenzie Crook .... Ragetti
When I first heard that Disney was going to be making a movie based on one of the most popular rides at Disneyland, I was quite dubious as to whether or not it would actually be good. Truth be told, the ride is kind of overrated, though it has been ten plus years since I was last on it. Also, I've never been a huge Johnny Depp fan, and Orlando Bloom is only super cool when he's a bad ass elf. I was mostly looking forward to seeing Geoffrey Rush and Keira Knightley, and seeing how violent Disney would allow one of their movies to be under director Gore Verbinski.
I don't find it surprising at all that it took four writers (Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Stuart Beattie and Jay Wolpert) to craft a five minute theme park ride into a two hour long movie. Elliott and Rossio adapted that into the screenplay which found it's way onto the cinema screens and into our hearts. If you created a time machine and took a look at the Internet back before this movie was released, most people's love of pirates was never voiced. Perhaps it was a secret shame that they kept to themselves, never wanting to admit to friends and family that given half a chance, those pirate lovers would pillage our villages and make for the high seas and a merry life of sea-faring crime.
Well, that's mostly because before this movie came out, pirates were all scraggly and horrible looking, with names like Blackbeard and Bluebeard (many Beard names), and they weren't struck as the most appealing sort of folk to spend the rest of their lives with. Nowadays, thanks to POTC (another POTC movie was released the next year, leading to some confusion on my part as to what the POTC posters that we were selling at Music World were. Me: "There's a character named Jack in Passion of the Christ?!?! That doesn't sound right at all!"), pirates are viewed as sexy, bad ass men who play by their own rules. Well, yeah, I guess Depp was sexy in the movie, but about 95% of the pirate population in the movie looked exactly like your stereotypical pirate, all scurvvy-ridden and filthy.
Anyways, the writing team put together a fun popcorn movie, which normally would've done alright at the box office and then gone on to be a forgettable Disney flick where they didn't follow their particular formula. Sure, there are die-hard Tron fans, and people that loved The Fox and The Hound, but they're not mentioned in the same breath as your typical Disney classics. Those movies were alright, even cult classics to some people, but ask Joe Multiplex what Jeff Bridges character's name was in Tron and you'll most likely get a blank stare. Those movies had great stories, but they didn't have that defining character, that over-the-top performance that boosted the film far past everyone's expectations. They didn't have Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow.
Depp was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his Keith Richards-inspired performance as the roguish but charming Capt. Jack, and I think it's definitely a deserving nomination, don't get me wrong. I'd just like to see Depp act like a regular human being once in awhile, rather than always giving some weird nuanced performance as an oddball character. His performance is what this picture hangs it's hat on, no matter how many battle scenes, huge explosions, fighting skeletons and rotting monkey skeletons you cram into the movie. Michael Keaton, Jim Carrey and Christopher Walken were all considered for the Jack Sparrow part, and I think only Keaton could've given a performance that would've rivalled Depp's for sheer imagination and charm.
This movie is one I'd liken to Peter Falk's description of The Princess Bride when telling Fred Savage what the book was about. It's got it all, explosions, sword fights, sea battles, pirates, monkeys, etc. It doesn't insult or condescend to the audience as Disney has been guilty of before. The story is so over the top that you can't really judge the acting that badly, and even if you were going to, so what? It's a popcorn movie, and those are all about enjoying yourself, and losing yourself in the fantasy world that the movie creates for you. Unlike that other POTC movie, this is a reality that I believe in.
5 / 5