Pirates of the Caribbean:

The Curse Of The Black Pearl

Reviewed by Rich Drees 

     Let’s face it. The last couple of decades have not been kind to the pirate movie genre. Cutthroat Island, Roman Polanski’s Pirates, The Pirate Movie, and Ice Pirates were all pretty dismal affairs and it had come to feel that cinematic swashbuckling on the high seas had become a thing of the past. But fortunately, Pirates of the Caribbean flies in the face of such tradition and delivers a rousing adventure that stands out among the summer’s crop of big budget escapism.

     Johnny Depp stars as Captain Jack Sparrow, a charismatic pirate who is down his luck. His crew had mutinied and left with out a ship. Arriving at the Jamaican city of Port Royal, he is almost immediately imprisoned. That evening, his former crew, led by the villainous Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) attack the city and manage to abduct the Governor’s daughter Elizabeth (Keira Knightley). Sparrow manages to escape during the confusion and teams up with apprentice blacksmith Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) who has loved Elizabeth from afar. Sparrow and Will head to the pirate city Tortuga, a town that seems to be one be one perpetual bar fight, to recruit a new crew to go after Barbossa. With the British navy in hot pursuit, Sparrow, Will and crew trail the pirates back to their island base to a climactic three-way battle.

     Screenwriters Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio (1998’s The Mask Of Zorro) have crafted a story that moves along at a breathless pace and delivers the kind of thrills that recall the great swashbuckling epics of Hollywood’s Golden Age, but with an added layer of fantasy to bring to life a real cursed treasure. Working from the brief of adapting a rather plotless theme park ride into a two-hour feature must have been an interesting writing exercise and Elliot and Rossio have fleshed out a great and sprawling storyline that still manages to work in a few subtle nods to the ride. And one may suspect that the treasure’s curse of never being able to enjoy physical pleasure may be the writers’ subtle jab at the recent Political Correct overhaul the ride received.

     Much has been already written about Johnny Depp’s statements that he has patterned his Jack Sparrow after Rolling Stone’s guitarist Keith Richards. While it is fairly obvious that Depp has captured many of Richard’s mannerisms, it’s not as distracting as one may think. Sparrow is still a scoundrel and cad who blithely plays all sides against each other in his bid to get his ship back, but does so with such panache and charisma that you can’t help but root for him.

     Geoffrey Rush is wonderful as the captain of the cursed pirate crew. While perhaps not a role one would expect him to take, though he has done genre work before most notably 1999’s Mystery Men, he attacks the part with relish and makes it his own. He even brings a note of regret and pathos to the character when he describes the curse to Keira Knightley’s character.

     Unfortunately, against such flash parts as Sparrow and Bones, Orlando Bloom’s Will and Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth don’t seem to stand out as much. But the pair do make the most of their obligatory romantic story arc. Knightley has already shown off her acting chops in Bend It Like Beckham. Bloom, while still not landing himself a meaty role to stretch his drama chops, does manage to differentiate his role here from that of the elf warrior Legolas he is playing in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy.