'Welcome to the Caribbean, love' (Pirates of the Caribbean - The Curse Of The Black Pearl (DVD))

Member Name: hogsflesh

Product:	Pirates of the Caribbean - The Curse Of The Black Pearl (DVD)
Date:	22/09/03 (252 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great fun action film, with an incredible bit , of acting from Depp

Disadvantages: I really can't think, of a single problem with, this film - it's smashing

The problem with big Hollywood blockbusters these days is that they all take themselves terribly seriously. This is why I've largely given up on them. I yearn for the good old days of Indiana Jones or Goonies, films that were light-hearted fun and had none of the po-faced pretensions of The Matrix and its ilk. The first Star Wars film was fun. Now, apparently, we have to call it A New Hope and see it as part of a much more 'Important Story'. Boo!

Pirates of the Caribbean, on the other hand, is very much the kind of film that I go for. It's made with a lightness of touch that most blockbusters, clunky great unsubtle things that they are, sorely lack. At no point does it try and make the audience care about anything, it isn't setting itself up as part of a mighty, meaningful epic, it just exists to entertain us for just over two hours. Some people may see this as a problem. Those people are fools. Everything about this film - the script, the direction, the pacing, the acting, especially the acting - speaks of an entirely commendable desire to produce a fun viewing experience for people of all ages. Hurrah!

The story is actually slightly more complicated than I'd expected. Elizabeth, the daughter of the governor of a Caribbean colony, is in love with Will Turner, a humble but dashing blacksmith's apprentice. She is being wooed by Commodore Norrington, a high ranking stuffed-shirt naval commander, and her father approves the match. Then one night the colony is attacked by a gang of vicious pirates led by the fearsome Barbossa, and Elizabeth is abducted, the pirates interested in a curious, vaguely Aztec-looking pendant she wears. Will, her lover, pursues her in the company of Jack Sparrow, a somewhat dissolute pirate who arrived the day before and is in prison. And from there on we are treated to none stop thrills, spills, derring-do and comedy as the film weaves towards its inevitable but satisfying conclusion.

Ev
erything that a good pirate film needs is there: cursed treasure, desert islands, a man with a parrot, a monkey in a waistcoat, lots of people saying 'Arrrrrrrr!', a dwarf... Someone even walks the plank! There are a few predictable but fun plot twists along the way; the baddies all turning out to be undead could have been a genuinely effective twist if it hadn't been so widely advertised ion the trailers. Of course it isn't even remotely realistic, but why on earth would you go and see a pirate film if you wanted realism? The only real criticism with the plot is that the climactic battle is perhaps a bit too long, especially since anyone with even half a brain will have figured out how it's going to resolve itself long before it's even started. Oh well, a pretty minor problem, all things considered.

The film is dominated by Johnny Depp, giving his best performance since Fear and Loathing. He is simply astonishing as Sparrow. He dresses like something Adam Ant might have once aspired to be, with his face tanned a deep brown and his already expressive eyes emphasised by heavy use of make up. His hair and beard are worth the price of admission alone. He claims to have based his performance on Keith Richards, which seems about right as he lolls around, waggles his hands weirdly, stares manically and speaks in a croaky London accent (far better than his London accent in From Hell). He fights, totters about, drinks and gets slapped. He elevates the film far, far above the norm. Without him it would be an entertaining pirate romp. With him it's an entertaining pirate romp with Keith Richards. If you instinctively understand that that would be the best thing ever, then you'll love this film.

The rest of the cast is good, too. Geoffrey Rush has a lot of fun as the evil Barbossa. Orlando Bloom, who looks a little like Errol Flynn, is well-suited to the part of Will. Keira Knightly as Elizabeth is marvellous, feisty, beautifu
l and with smashing bristols. Jack Davenport as Norrington is also pretty good, like Basil Rathbone only less evil. (I've always vaguely resented Jack Davenport, though, mainly because he was in my year at university. I never met him, and have no reason to suppose that he's anything other than perfectly charming, but I've always somehow felt vague discontent about his very existence. Jealousy, I suppose.) The cast is full of vaguely familiar looking British actors, from Jonathan Price to the scrawny rat-faced one out of The Office (Tim? Gareth? I can never remember.) Sharp-eyed viewers with long memories might even spot Lt Gruber out of Allo Allo close to the beginning.

The direction is, in truth, nothing spectacular. The director, Gore Verbinski, obviously knows what's expected of him and delivers it perfectly acceptably. The script, on the other hand, is a lot wittier than I expected, being genuinely funny, even in the comic relief scenes (comic relief scenes in blockbusters are usually dire). The editing, pacing, incidental music and so on are all exactly as you'd expect for a swashbuckling action film. The action scenes are all enjoyable, with sword fights, cannons, people swinging on ropes and all the other obvious pirate stuff. The special effects that transform pirates into zombies are pretty good, although I've still never seen a CGI effect that I can completely believe in. Still, the fact that the pirates only appear in their true form in the moonlight is used to good effect, with some innovative and occasionally almost creepy moments. Although there are lots of fights, there's very little meaningful violence. Few people actually die, and I think that giving the film a 12A certificate instead of a PG was a little harsh. The zombies are presumably the sticking point, but they're no worse than anything in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I love swashbuckling movies. There have been very few of them in recent times, th
e last one I can think of having been Cutthroat Island, not the exactly biggest success in history. I rather hope that this will spark off a revival of the genre, although obviously that could be a mixed blessing. Still, if they're anything like as good as this then I'll be happy. Clearly there's no comparison with The Adventures of Robin Hood, the greatest swashbuckler ever made and one of my all-time favourite films, but that would be expecting too much. I'm sure that everyone who was going to see this film already has, what with dooyoo not having added it till months after it was released, but just in case you haven't then I'd urge you to do so as quickly as possible. It requires no thought whatsoever, but is all the better for it.

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