2003 / 143 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz

For years I’ve wanted to see a truly amazing pirate movie, a movie with all the fun and action and wit and “Shiver me timbers” sort of dialogue that I had always dreamed of. For years I’ve wanted to see a pirate film that delivers on the promise of daring do, skullduggery and intrigue. I’ve longed for a movie that contains the right balance of sword fights and cannon fire and plank walking and gold doubloons. I’ve wanted a movie with cutlasses and pistols and gold teeth and fake eyes and parrots and rum and island paradises and ships being looted. I’ve wanted to see rough and tumble men soaring the seven seas and saying “Arr” and singing songs about the pirate life and the consumption of rum. I have, therefore, sat through a great many lackluster pirate films to see, in vain, if that promise were fulfilled. Some came so very, very close (”Captain Blood”, “Treasure Island”) but yet lacked a certain something I had always longed for. Some were downright terrible (”Cutthroat Island”) but I still watched them, so great was my desire to see the pirate life accurately committed to celluloid. Some had beautiful moments and then sucked: “Pirates of Penzance” starts out with a magnificently rousing rendition of “I am a Pirate King” sang by Kevin Kline and then slides off the rails the minute that song comes to an end. But none of them are half the salty spectacle that is “Pirates of the Caribbean”. “Pirates of the Caribbean” gets things right that I hadn’t even realized were wrong. It includes brilliant, little touches that I didn’t even know were missing. There have been a few good movies this summer, but this was the first one that was so good I immediately called most of the people I knew and instructed them to rush to the cinema.

Everything works to an absolutely glorious effect here. The plot is sheer bliss, at least to me: a group of undead pirates sail the seven seas cursed by a treasure they once found and foolishly squandered. They must get back every piece of this treasure in order to revert back from the bloodthirsty ghouls they have become. Sure, they are unable to be killed. But moonlight exposes them as the skeletal army of brigands that they really are. They are unable to eat, unable to drink, unable to enjoy the company of a woman. So they live forever, but their lives suck. Captain Barbosa (Geoffrey Rush) of this damned ship (The Black Pearl) has therefore spent the past decade searching for every last bit of this cursed Aztec loot, the last doubloon of which now hangs around the beautiful neck of Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley, a true beauty that makes me want to buy plane tickets for England). They arrive at Port Royal, abduct the lovely, young lady and make for the island where the treasure resides to reverse the curse. The young lady’s secret love (Orlando Bloom) springs a pirate captain (Johnny Depp) from prison and makes off in hot pursuit. I’m smiling just describing this plot. Like I said, it’s pure bliss. It’s not Shakespeare, but who cares? It’s just the sort of beautiful, rugged adventure I’ve longed to see for years.

Keira Knightley is stunning and proves a perfect heroine. She’s no mere damsel in distress. She’s an independent minded woman who actually gets off her ass and saves the man who has come to save her at some points. Orlando Bloom is great here, as the man who longs for Keira but is too shy to do anything about it until she is abducted by brigands. He’s dashing and cool and perfectly suited to the role of a dashing rogue. But the real treasure of this film is Johnny Depp. He’s absolutely brilliant. He gives a rousing, distinctive and completely strange sort of performance here. He’s full of facial tics and strange mannerisms and one-liners. Most pirate captains in movies are dashing, chivalrous heroes. Depp has his heroic aspects, but he’s also an eccentric chatterbox criminal who rarely shuts up and is always thinking. He’s easily the most interesting hero on display in cinemas this summer, or in many a summer. Every moment he was onscreen brought a smile to my face. This is why I love Johnny Depp: he takes roles that could be rather routine in anyone else’s hands and invests them with his trademark oddness and makes them that more interesting than pretty much any other actor would have made them. But he never hits the wrong notes in his performances and he always modulates them so that they are perfectly at home in the framework of whatever film they are in service of. His Captain Jack Sparrow is a marvel to behold. I also enjoyed the cool villainy of Geoffrey Rush as Captain Barbosa. He’s a fiercesome adversary, but Rush always manages to essay the humanity at the heart of this undead figure. He makes Barbosa’s longing almost tangible. It’s a great performance, the sort of performance that an Oscar winner usually doesn’t put into a movie made for summertime.

And the action? Oh my God! The action! There are sword fights and cannon fights and battles between humans and legions of the undead. The film is bursting with spectacle, and all of it is magnificent and pulse pounding. I was on the edge of my seat for the majority of the film. And these aren’t simple stock movie action sequences either, they are staged with a real wit and true bravado. They are also staged in such a kinetically satisfying manner that you are never left in the theater scratching your head and wondering what exactly is happening (this seems to be a problem more and more frequently in action films). Not only that, but I had no idea how refreshing it would be to see rope acrobatics and sword fights rather than the car chases and half-assed shootouts I’ve been subjected to all summer. This is also a rather beautifully photographed film: with gorgeous beaches and sunsets and lovingly constructed period ships (not to mention the lovely Miss Knightley). The eye delights in this film, and the mind is also given something to mull over.

Simply put, I thoroughly love this movie with every fiber of my being. It stimulates me in every conceivable way. It’s beautiful and eerie and exciting and funny and the characters are even given more than one dimension. Gore Verbinski is quickly establishing himself as a master filmmaker, and this is his best work thus far. I have fallen absolutely in love with this movie. I am high on this movie. I am giddy just thinking about it. I can’t say that about any other film I’ve seen this summer. “Terminator 3″ is a well crafted and exciting film, but it did not engage my heart in the way that this film has. This, I am sure, will not be the case for everyone. I doubt this movie will captivate everyone and slap an immovable smile to their faces, but it did mine. There was not a single moment of this film that rang false for me. I’ve already seen it three times, and I can still make that statement, so exhilarating is the film’s intoxicating blend of heroism and bad grammar and crusty, rum-soaked attitude. I am truly enchanted by “Pirates of the Caribbean”. It’s a film so good that it even makes up for sitting through “The Hulk” and “Charlie’s Angels 2″ and “The Matrix Reloaded”.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 9th, 2003 at 4:24 pm and is filed under Dale's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.