Bringing Back Swashbuckling

Movie Review:
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

2003 / 2 hrs., 23 min. / PG-13

Director: Gore Verbinski

I have been a life-long fan of the Disneyland attraction “Pirates of the Caribbean”.  As a child, I rode through in general glee (and brief terror when the boat went down the hills).  As an adult and film student, I ride through it as a study in amazing technological achievement and incredible production design.  For a ride, it is very cinematic – as is much of Disneyland, setting it worlds apart from the ordinary amusement park.  The single most vivid image in my mind is the skeleton lashed to the helm of a wrecked vessel, still seemingly piloting the craft as lightning crackles around him.  And on a trivial note, the lighting scheme for the opening bayou section was declared by critics to be the most believable indoor sunset ever created.

In what has turned out to be an on-going marketing strategy, albeit with its ups and downs, the Disney empire has turned yet another of their park attractions into a film.  Having casually charted the quality of entertainment over the past couple of decades, I was apprehensive of the potential childishness or sheer stupidity of such a plan.  I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw; but “pleasantly” is an understatement.  For reasons I will present shortly, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl instantly earned a place on my Top Ten list of favorite films.

The film departs greatly from the ride, which is fine since the ride is basically a ten-minute tour through a town on the Spanish Main as pirates plunder, pillage, and burn it to the ground.  But the two are not connected in name only: A handful of the ride’s key tableaux provide a springboard for the film, including prisoners trying to secure a key from a guard dog, a pirate ship attacking a fort at night, a pile of treasure with a dead captain on top, a bottle of wine pouring through a skeleton’s rib-cage, and on it goes.  But I suppose I should talk about the film itself.

Laughably notorious Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) arrives in Port Royal, having lost command of his ship, the Black Pearl, and not doing any better in his leaky dinghy.  Upon being spotted and captured, he is sentenced to be hanged the next morning and imprisoned.

During the night, the Black Pearl sails into the harbor and fires upon Port Royal.  Throngs of pirates wade ashore and kidnap the governor’s daughter Elizabeth (Kiera Knightley), because she wears a gold medallion they have been seeking.  Her friend Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) witnesses the kidnaping from a distance, and sets out to reclaim her.

He cannot do so, however, without the help of Jack, who knows where the ship is headed and why it is headed there.  So Will turns pirate, and he and Jack head off after the Black Pearl, pursued by Port Royal’s military and Commodore Norrington (Jack Davenport).

Now under the command of Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), the Black Pearl heads for the Isla de Muerta, where Barbossa and his pirates hope to lift the curse that plagues them by replacing the gold medallion in its Aztec coffer, and adding a few pints of Elizabeth’s blood for payment to the gods who cursed the gold ages ago.  The curse itself is a beaut, lending the film some of its most memorable images.

From there, the plot thickens (downright congeals) with various twists and turns as Will rescues Elizabeth, Jack confronts Barbossa, Barbossa captures Will and discards Jack again, Norrington rescues Elizabeth, and so on.  It sounds messy, but the execution of it is brilliant, energetic, and unadulterated fun.

Director Gore Verbinski (Mouse Hunt), working with a wonderful script by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, has crafted one of the most entertaining adventures I have seen in years.  In the wrong hands this could have been a very cheesy, really dumb movie like the multitude of Disney films from the past two decades, including First Kid, Blank Check, and even the other “ride” movies, The Haunted Mansion and The Country Bears.  The “family” films that might give the kids a laugh but which waste any intelligent person’s money.

This film does not stoop for a moment to anything less than superb.  The production design is fantastic, costumes are wonderful, the orchestral score by Klaus Badelt is rousing, the special effects are awesome; camera angles, lighting – it is an all-around well-crafted film.  Okay, the parrot reciting the ride’s key line (“Dead men tell no tales”) is chintzy, and I had hoped that somewhere (end credits?) they’d play the entire song of “A Pirate’s Life For Me,” but when those are the only things I can find to criticize, I think the movie did pretty well.

Johnny Depp (Edward Scissorhands) takes what would have been an ordinary role in someone else’s hands and turns Jack Sparrow into a sauntering, swaying, half mad, half drunk lunatic that you have to see to believe, and he does so with just the right level of intensity; not over-bearing, not too under-stated.  If any others had tried to do it his way, they would have gone overboard and turned Sparrow into another stupid kids’ film clown.  Bizarre as it seems at first glance, Depp’s performance is the perfect note for the film.

Depp also gets the best lines, including some delightfully witty ones that trample on every pirate cliche out there.  We’ve all heard tales of ghoulish villains who never leave any survivors; when Jack hears such a tale, he retorts: “I wonder where the stories came from, then.”  Why has no one thought of that before?

Geoffrey Rush (Shine) is wonderful as the villainous Barbossa, and he hams it up all over the place.  His is the traditional leering, growling, gravel-voiced swashbuckler, turned up a few notches.  He swaggers, glares, and otherwise chews the scenery to bits.  Some critics have viewed this as a fault, but Rush does it in a way that fits into the aura of the whole production with comic delight.

Orlando Bloom (Wilde), Kiera Knightley (Bend It Like Beckham), Jack Davenport (The Talented Mr. Ripley), and Jonathan Pryce have roles that do not call for excessive creativity, but they fill their positions ably.  Pryce (Brazil, Something Wicked This Way Comes) is one of my favorite character actors, and I would have enjoyed seeing him on screen more.

What is beautiful about this film is how all of its excellent elements add up to just so much gosh-darn fun!  We are not bogged down with political statements, excessive focus on the romance, weak scripting, or lagging pace – I heartily disagree with those who feel its running time is too long.  The comedy is funny without being inane, the adventure is rousing without being tiring, even the sidekick roles are well balanced – unlike irritating sidekicks that dominate other productions until I’m ready to strangle them, like the parrot in Aladdin and the two demons in Hercules.

On the topic of fun, I’d like to highlight the sword fights.  Hollywood has the general attitude that the mere presence of a fight, battle, or chase should somehow in itself be entertaining.  And maybe there are enough muscle-headed viewers who thrive on the raw adrenaline of such scenes to prove Hollywood right.  I am not one of them.  I despise a movie that puts the plot on hold while characters run each other through or plow into every fruit cart in town.  So I tip my hat to Verbinski & Crew for creating sword fights and ship battles that are engaging and clever.

The film falls short of a perfect score for small issues.  The town of Tortuga sports some rather busty women – which may fit the town’s atmosphere, but it is gratuitous in a film you know kids are going to want to see.  And there is the questionable ethic of having us root for lawbreakers.  An attempt is made to excuse Will’s behavior at the end, but it is fuzzy in its logic and I am not completely satisfied on that count.

I concur with Jon Hanneman, the friend who recommended I see it, when he said it was the most sheer fun he had at the movies in a long time.  No cares, no worries, no depressingly burdened hobbits.  Just good old-fashioned heros and villains swashbuckling their way across the Caribbean.  The only thing missing is the hill at the end to bring you back to port.

Artistry: 10
Entertainment: 9