Okay this film is a definite oldie but what can I say – it was free on Amazon Prime and I was putting my shiny new Roku box through its paces. So without further adieu I give you some thoughts on Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl.
I will freely admit I started this film fully expecting to dislike it, stop it and go pick something else. Instead I wound up seeing all of it and then going on and watching the sequels. I got caught up in both the story and the characters, especially in the first movie – the other two were more muddled and especially in the third one it felt like they were trying to create Lord of the Rings with pirates. So I am concentrating here on the first film.
First the story. Trying to properly describe the plot of Curse of the Black Pearl is tricky because it is not all that straightforward. It consists of a number of interconnected stories running more or less in parallel. There is the story of Barbosa and his crew trying to find all of the parts of a cursed treasure they stole so they can return it and get out of the curse. There is Jack Sparrow’s quest to get his ship back from Barbosa. There is also Norrington’s plot where he is trying to stop the piracy going on. The Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann subplots sort of revolve around all these plots. Usually when you have that many storylines running at once the result is a confusing mess. However to the credit of the writers and director the story is pretty clean and not too hard to follow.
Second is the characters. Geoffrey Rush is in fine form as Barbosa and Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley do good work as Will and Elizabeth. Of course the performance that really defined the film was Johnny Depp’s totally off the wall Captain Jack Sparrow. It turns out he based the character on a combination of Keith Richards and the cartoon skunk Pepe Le Pew. However he did it the result was extremely entertaining, and he played it excellently well. And this little character snippet leads me to my favorite thing in the film…
My favorite part in the film was the way it kept letting you think that Jack Sparrow was a legend in his own mind and an eccentric fool while dropping hints (like the way he and Will captured HMS Interceptor) that he is a LOT cleverer than anyone is guessing. The payoff to this happens late in the film when Will (Orlando Bloom)and Jack are both captive to Barbosa. Will sees Jack deliberately palm and hide a piece of cursed treasure thus cursing himself temporarily and suddenly it hits Will – Sparrow planned everything and has been manipulating him, Barbosa and the English soldiers and ships the whole time and now has everyone where he wants them. He has tricked Barbosa into attacking the English with them thinking the curse makes them invulnerable and now can cause the curse to be lifted at the opportune moment – like when they are in battle against the English.
I always like this type of “plan within a plan” storyline and this did not disappoint.
To be fair this is not a perfect film. It is a touch too long and a couple of scenes take longer than they needed to. But really overall it is well worth watching in my opinion.
I will freely admit I started this film fully expecting to dislike it, stop it and go pick something else. Instead I wound up seeing all of it and then going on and watching the sequels. I got caught up in both the story and the characters, especially in the first movie – the other two were more muddled and especially in the third one it felt like they were trying to create Lord of the Rings with pirates. So I am concentrating here on the first film.
First the story. Trying to properly describe the plot of Curse of the Black Pearl is tricky because it is not all that straightforward. It consists of a number of interconnected stories running more or less in parallel. There is the story of Barbosa and his crew trying to find all of the parts of a cursed treasure they stole so they can return it and get out of the curse. There is Jack Sparrow’s quest to get his ship back from Barbosa. There is also Norrington’s plot where he is trying to stop the piracy going on. The Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann subplots sort of revolve around all these plots. Usually when you have that many storylines running at once the result is a confusing mess. However to the credit of the writers and director the story is pretty clean and not too hard to follow.
Second is the characters. Geoffrey Rush is in fine form as Barbosa and Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley do good work as Will and Elizabeth. Of course the performance that really defined the film was Johnny Depp’s totally off the wall Captain Jack Sparrow. It turns out he based the character on a combination of Keith Richards and the cartoon skunk Pepe Le Pew. However he did it the result was extremely entertaining, and he played it excellently well. And this little character snippet leads me to my favorite thing in the film…
My favorite part in the film was the way it kept letting you think that Jack Sparrow was a legend in his own mind and an eccentric fool while dropping hints (like the way he and Will captured HMS Interceptor) that he is a LOT cleverer than anyone is guessing. The payoff to this happens late in the film when Will (Orlando Bloom)and Jack are both captive to Barbosa. Will sees Jack deliberately palm and hide a piece of cursed treasure thus cursing himself temporarily and suddenly it hits Will – Sparrow planned everything and has been manipulating him, Barbosa and the English soldiers and ships the whole time and now has everyone where he wants them. He has tricked Barbosa into attacking the English with them thinking the curse makes them invulnerable and now can cause the curse to be lifted at the opportune moment – like when they are in battle against the English.
I always like this type of “plan within a plan” storyline and this did not disappoint.
To be fair this is not a perfect film. It is a touch too long and a couple of scenes take longer than they needed to. But really overall it is well worth watching in my opinion.
