Corporate Line: Set in the Caribbean Sea in the 17th century, this is the story of a gentleman rogue of a pirate, Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), blacksmith, Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) who teams up with the daughter (Keira Knightley) of a governor (Pryce) to stop the evil plan of a ship of dangerous pirates (Geoffrey Rush) who are trying to reverse an ancient curse that leaves them stuck between life and death, with the light of the moon revealing their skeletons, like some kind of undead monsters.
The Good: Fantastic scenery as it almost gives you the feeling of the pirate life on the high seas. Pirates of the Caribbean does a good job of taking old tales and weaving them into new ones.
The visual effects are as you’d expect, fantastic. They never give up the fantasy that Pirates truly is. The Black Pearl pirates spend some of their time as skeletons and truly nasty fellows. The ships are expansive. You can almost smell the salty air.
Johnny Depp is such a chameleon. He pulls off the pretty yet sly pirate. It’s a shame we haven’t been getting more Depp films as of late. He steals the screen every time he’s present. Orlando Bloom is great as the heart of gold that will do anything to win the love of Knightly. There is a good chemistry between Bloom and Knightley. Knightley almost steals the show with her vigor and never-say-die attitude.
The film leans more towards humor than a swashbuckling drama. It’s based on a Disney theme park ride so what did you expect? However it comes off much better than I could explain. You will laugh, you won’t cry, but you will get caught in the suspense. Perhaps the best thing about the film is that the kids will have a film they can watch over again and not get bored. Just be prepared for a lot of sword fighting and pirate talk. Arrrgh.
The Bad: Well we do find ourselves visiting and revisiting the same digs over and over again. It would have been interesting to visit a few more places during our escape into the past. Maybe we’ll get a sequel.
DVD: 10 hours of extras? Who has time for such things? Don’t start it because you might find that you lose 10 hours fast.
There are strong commentaries from the cast and crew. Some is very insightful like the writing team of Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Stuart Beattie, and Jay Wolpert. Then some offer slightly less, Keira Knightly doesn’t add anything of value but she sure sounds like she is having fun.
I thoroughly enjoyed the piece titled Fly on the Set which shows us the production from green screen and other behind the scenes elements. A must see. It’s much better than An Epic At Sea: The Making of Pirates of the Caribbean.
There are deleted scenes to be had; on most films you can tell why they were left behind. The same goes here – there is one scene that you might enjoy of Knightly telling a joke.
There are some interactive features but nothing adds up to the behind the scenes scoop that you get – as if you needed some other reason to buy the movie on DVD.
Frankly: If you don’t feel like swashbuckling after seeing the Pirates of the Caribbean then you’re not a swashbuckler at heart. Walk the plank you landlubber.
+ Charlie Craine
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