143 Minutes, Color, USA, 2003

Written By: Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Stuart Beattie & Jay Wolpert

Directed By: Gore Verbinski

Dramatis Personae:

Johnny Depp is Captain Jack Sparrow (he gets very upset when you forget the “Captain”), pirate legend, adventurer, and former commander of the Black Pearl.

Geoffrey Rush is Barbossa, Jack’s mutinous former first mate, current commander of the Black Pearl, and ruthless undead pirate lord.

Orlando Bloom is Will Turner, earnest young blacksmith with a connection to Jack Sparrow and Barbossa of which he is not yet aware.

Keira Knightley is Elizabeth Swann, spirited young noblewoman, and something of a pirate fangirl.

Jack Davenport is Norrington, proper and upstanding commander of the British Navy in Jamaica, and Elizabeth’s Intended.

Jonathan Pryce is Weatherby Swann, Elizabeth’s father, Governor of Jamaica, and your standard-issue flummoxed British Boffin.

Kevin McNally is Gibbs, former Navy man, now a drunken pirate and friend of Jack.

Lee Arenberg and Mackenzie Crook are Pintel and Ragetti, respectively, members of Barbossa’s crew and one of two comic-relief double acts to be found in the movie.

Giles New and Angus Barnett are Murtogg and Mullroy, respectively, two Royal Marines who can’t swim and the second of the two comic-relief double acts to be found in the movie.

Commentary:

Some movies are like lightning in a bottle. The stars just seem to line up just right. Acting, writing, directing, all fit together perfectly and make a movie that, if not an absolutely perfect moviegoing experience, is at least one that’s far more enjoyable than it has any right being. The Curse of the Black Pearl, the first in the series of Pirates of the Caribbean movies, is such a film. It was a crapshoot to begin with: based on a THEME PARK RIDE, starring professional eccentric Johnny Depp, directed by a former punk musician, there were so many reasons it shouldn’t have worked. But work it did, and the result is a high-quality popcorn movie that lovingly evokes swashbucklers of the past as much as it creates its own mythology. It’s certainly much better than you’d expect, since its origins are in a Disney animatronic experience.

Our story opens sometime in the Age of Sail, aboard a ship bound for Port Royal, Jamaica. Young Elizabeth Swann, a precocious girl and lover of sea lore, stands on the foredeck, gazing out at the mysterious fog that shrouds the ship and singing a children’s song about pirates. Her singing is cut short, first by the superstitious crewman Gibbs, who considers it bad luck to be singing about pirates in pirate waters (there’s very little that Gibbs believes is NOT bad luck, as we will see); and then by the smug Lieutenant Norrington, who intends to bring law and order to the Caribbean by bringing the pirate scourge to the harsh justice of the day. Elizabeth’s father then breaks up the whole thing, and Elizabeth is left to ponder the strange fog once again. Soon the fog parts, revealing a disturbing sight: a ransacked merchant vessel, burning and sinking into the sea. The crew pulls a sole survivor from the wreckage: a semi-conscious boy about Elizabeth’s age named Will Turner. Governor Swann leaves Will in Elizabeth’s charge as the adults see to the vessel, and Elizabeth discovers the macabre golden medallion that Will wears around his neck. Believing this to be a pirate medallion, and remembering Norrington’s professed fervor to prosecute all pirates to the fullest extent of the law, Elizabeth hides the trinket so that Will is not accused. As she does so, however, Elizabeth sees something no one else sees: sailing away from the wreck, a ghost ship with ragged black sails, flying the Skull and Bones…

Eight years later, Elizabeth has grown into a lovely and graceful young woman – if not a bit more headstrong than her prim and proper father would prefer – who still possesses the stolen medallion and harbors a not-so-secret crush on Will Turner. Will, meanwhile, is a blacksmith’s apprentice (though since the blacksmith is a useless drunk, Will actually ends up doing all the work) who strives to be decent and proper despite his reciprocation of Elizabeth’s feelings. They meet on the morning of what will turn out to be a fateful day in their lives: Norrington has come up in the world, having risen to the rank of Commodore, and is to be officially promoted at a ceremony that Governor Swann will preside over. Knowing that Norrington has his eye on Elizabeth, Governor Swann has provided his daughter with a fancy new dress for the occasion. Unfortunately the new dress is one of those ridiculous 18^th century dresses, heavy and corseted and very uncomfortable for the free-spirited Elizabeth.

Meanwhile, Will has arrived at the Governor’s mansion, first to present the Governor with a magnificent new sword for Norrington (which he made himself, despite his master getting all the credit), and then to hopelessly pine over Elizabeth. Alas, the humble blacksmith hasn’t a chance with the Governor’s daughter…under normal circumstances. But things are about to get decidedly ABNORMAL.

For the next thing we know, Captain Jack Sparrow blows into town, making a grand entrance into Port Royal harbor – or at least, as grand an entrance as he can make in a leaky dingy that sinks underneath him before he even makes it to shore. Jack Sparrow is evidently some kind of pirate superstar, although he seems to have fallen on some hard times and is in the market for a new ship and crew. And he apparently doesn’t know how to aim low: he immediately makes a play to steal the HMS Interceptor, the fastest ship under Norrington’s command, which is currently being guarded by the Marines Murtogg and Mullroy. Jack tries to bamboozle his way past the dim-bulb Redcoats, and eventually his fast-talking routine comes around to the subject of the legendary Black Pearl. A pirate vessel, reputedly the fastest ship in the sea, the Black Pearl is, according to Mullroy, “crewed by the damned, and captained by a man so evil that Hell Itself spat him back out.”

While Jack does his best to confuse the crap out of Murtogg and Mullroy, Norrington’s promotion ceremony goes off without a hitch. But it’s at the reception afterwards that things go wrong. Norrington takes Elizabeth aside and, in a stereotypical awkward British way, proposes to her. But Norrington is so awkward and British about it that he fails to see Elizabeth’s distress; her corset is slowly suffocating her. At last she passes out, and falls off the side of the fort and into the harbor below. As she sinks beneath the waves, the medallion she wears touches the sea for the first time in eight years, and sends a mysterious pulse of energy through the water.

Fortunately for Elizabeth, Jack is nearby, and gallantly dives in to rescue her. He obligingly gets her out of the corset, and in so doing he lays eyes on the medallion. His reaction is one of fearful recognition. But there is no time to ask any questions, for Norrington is immediately on the scene to pounce on the scruffy reprobate who just resuscitated his fiancé-to-be by stripping her down to her petticoat (the scandal!). A quick inspection of Jack’s person reveals an East India Company pirate brand on his arm, and a singular tattoo that confirms he is indeed the infamous Jack Sparrow. His personal effects are, like Jack himself, odd and distinct: a seemingly broken compass (it doesn’t point North, at least), a pistol loaded with only one shot, a rusty sword, and an impressive leather hat. Norrington has Jack thrown in irons and prepares to hang him first thing in the morning, but Jack proves to be too wily for him: he makes a dramatic escape using Elizabeth as a shield, and he flees to the nearest blacksmith’s shop to get his shackles removed.

This turns out to be a bad idea, because the nearest blacksmith’s shop just happens to be the very one where Will Turner is apprenticed. And not only is Will a skilled sword MAKER, but with nothing to do on his off hours but work out his assorted frustrations in sword practice, he’s also a skilled sword FIGHTER. AND, he’s more than a bit miffed at the pirate who dared to threaten the life of his secret love. Jack and Will engage in a furious duel that ranges throughout the shop, up the stairs, in the rafters, and around the forges. It ends when Jack finally gets sick of the whole thing and pulls his pistol on Will. But he hesitates to actually shoot; when Will won’t get out of the way and let him escape, Jack merely threatens him with the gun, saying, “This shot is not meant for you.” Jack’s reluctance costs him, for by this time the drunken blacksmith has sobered up enough to bash Jack over the head with his bottle and enable Norrington to finally take the pirate into custody.

That night, a strange change in the weather comes to Port Royal: a chill wind and bleak fog roll off the water and into the town. And with that fog comes a ghostly ship, which immediately opens fire on the port. From his prison cell, Jack sees the ship, and immediately recognizes it as the Black Pearl. Norrington scrambles his troops up at the fort, while down in town Will arms himself and gets ready to deal with a pirate invasion.

And sure enough, Port Royal is soon overrun by filthy degenerate pirates, led by the scabby duo Pintel and Ragetti. They extort and pilfer and loot and sack, and eventually make their way up to the Governor’s mansion. Being a girl who knows a thing or two about pirates, Elizabeth at first concludes that they’ve come to kidnap her for the ransom, and sets about hiding herself. But as Pintel and Ragetti grow more selective in their ransacking of the mansion, she realizes they aren’t looking for her. They’re looking for the medallion. Although they eventually find her, Elizabeth has enough presence of mind and enough knowledge of pirate lore to invoke “The Code of the Brethren, as set down by Morgan and Bartholomew” – the informal code of laws that all pirates are bound to obey. She requests an audience with their captain, a request that Pintel begrudgingly fulfills. Elizabeth is ferried off to the ship. Fighting down in the town, Will catches sight of this and tries to come to her rescue, but he is overpowered by the pirates – including, strangely enough, one he thought he’d killed a few minutes before – and knocked unconscious.

Once aboard the Black Pearl, Elizabeth meets its captain, the cruel and intimidating Barbossa and his (presumably) equally cruel and intimidating pet monkey, and offers him a deal: if he will stop his attack on Port Royal, she will give him the medallion. Elizabeth remembers the Black Pearl as the ghost ship she saw on her childhood voyage to Jamaica, and has deduced that Will’s medallion was what they were looking for. Barbossa at first tries to play it cool, but when Elizabeth threatens to drop the medallion overboard, he relents. When asked her name, Elizabeth, still thinking they will take her for ransom if they realize she is the Governor’s daughter, says she is a maid at the mansion and gives her name as “Elizabeth Turner.” This turns out to backfire on her, however, as the name “Turner” clearly has some significance to the pirates. Barbossa agrees to her terms, takes the medallion and calls off the raid. Unfortunately for Elizabeth, he sets sail with her still on board, citing a few loopholes in their agreement (mostly notably, “the Code is more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules”).

The next morning, Will regains consciousness and immediately heads to the fort. Governor Swann and Norrington are there, trying to map out a rescue strategy. When Murtogg and Mullroy mention that Jack Sparrow might know something about the Black Pearl, Will suggest they talk to him. But Norrington will have none of it; since the pirates who attacked them last night made no effort to set Jack free, he presumes they were not affiliated with him, and he’s determined to mount this rescue by the book. Frustrated, Will takes action of his own. He heads to Jack’s cell and offers to break him out if he will help him find the Black Pearl and rescue Elizabeth. Jack is at first reluctant to cooperate, until he learns Will’s name. Again, the Turner name has great importance to all these pirates, and Jack agrees to help. Will releases Jack, and through an insanely brilliant convoluted scheme, the two of them manage to not only steal the Interceptor but also disable the Dauntless, Norrington’s flagship, which prevents him from giving immediate chase.

Once safely on the open sea, Will confronts Jack. He realizes that Jack only agreed to help him after learning his name. Will had been raised by his mother in England and never really knew his seafaring father, but Jack did. Will’s father, according to Jack, was better known as Bootstrap Bill Turner, a pirate and former shipmate. The earnest young Will is troubled by the fact that his father was a criminal, and has difficulty accepting Jack’s assertion that a pirate can also be a good man – just as Bootstrap was.

Will has little time to come to terms with his new identity as a pirate son of a pirate, because Jack’s first stop is the wretched hive of scum and villainy known as Tortuga. Jack looks up Gibbs, who is now a drunken pirate himself (though no less superstitious), and tells him of his plan. He’s going after the Black Pearl, and he needs a crew. Gibbs calls Jack a madman for even suggesting such a thing, until Jack says that he has some leverage over Barbossa: the son of Bootstrap Bill. This bit of information is enough to change Gibbs’s mind, and they set out to assemble a crew.

Meanwhile, on the Black Pearl, Barbossa invites Elizabeth to dinner and conversation, where he explains why he has detained her. The medallion she carried is a piece of Aztec gold, part of a treasure trove hidden on the uncharted island of Isla de Muerta. The treasure was allegedly protected by a curse, but Barbossa and his crew paid that warning no need when they discovered the treasure ten years before. As they spent and squandered the treasure, they came to realize that the curse was real, and that the entire crew of the Black Pearl would be tormented until they made amends. Every piece of the stolen treasure must be returned to Isla de Muerta, and every man who participated in the stealing must offer his blood in sacrifice. Elizabeth’s medallion was the last piece. And as for the blood sacrifice, well...it turns out Elizabeth’s use of the Turner name was a REALLY bad idea.

Confronted with this information, Elizabeth attempts to make an escape. But once she makes it up on deck, the full extent of the pirates’ curse is revealed: the pirates are in fact UNDEAD. By the light of the full moon, their true form is revealed: rotting, skeletal incarnations of insatiable greed. They cannot be killed, Barbossa elucidates, but they cannot FEEL either. They are eternally hungry, thirsty, desperate for physical sensation, unable to die, and unable to truly live, until the curse is lifted.

While Elizabeth deals with this revelation, Will is privy to one of his own. As the newly-crewed Interceptor makes all speed toward Isla de Muerta, Gibbs, who seems compulsively incapable of not telling a good story, lets slip some details on the life and career of Jack Sparrow. Ten years ago, Jack was the captain of the Black Pearl. He took on a crew in Tortuga – among them Will’s father Bootstrap – intending to find the treasure of Isla de Muerta. Before they got there, the first mate Barbossa led a mutiny and marooned Jack on a deserted island. In accordance with pirate custom, Jack was given a pistol with a single shot, just in case he’d rather not suffer a slow death of starvation or dehydration. But Jack somehow managed to escape (and the story of his escape, which changes with each retelling, was the first of the many legends that surround Jack Sparrow), and vowed revenge on Barbossa. He even still carries that pistol with the single shot, which he means to use on his mutinous first mate when the time is right. This new information sets Will to worrying; in his haste and fervor to rescue his beloved Elizabeth, Will never considered the possibility that Jack might have his own reasons for going after the Black Pearl…and his own reasons for allowing Will to tag along. He soon starts to ponder whether he should trust Jack any further, and just what role Jack has planned for him in his convoluted scheme for revenge.

Quite possibly against my better judgment, I ADORE this movie. The Curse of the Black Pearl is a rollicking good time, hitting all the right notes for a swashbuckling adventure and adding its own twists to them. You’ve got starcrossed lovers, buried treasure, uncharted desert isles, swordfighting, battles at sea, and colorful nautical jargon. All the pirate movie conventions are there, and are turned about forty-five degrees left of expectation. Yes, there’s buried treasure, but the plot is about putting the treasure back where it was found. Yes, there’s a group of desperate cutthroats as our villains, but they’re actually quite sympathetic when you realize the nature of their curse. Yes, there’s an earnest and dashing young hero out to save his true love, but he’s the SIDEKICK. The sidekick to perhaps one of the most unique characters created in recent film memory.

The result of a perfect storm of collaboration between writer, director, and actor, Jack Sparrow is something completely new and alien to the classic swashbuckler paradigm. Walking a fine line between total buffoon and mad genius, Jack is unlike any pirate ever seen on film…and yet he somehow seems the most believable film pirate ever portrayed. He is as much a rock star as he is a pirate, coasting by on his celebrity and letting his legend do all the heavy lifting for him. It’s something of a running gag when Jack, confronted with an impossible situation, merely smirks and responds, “I’m Captain Jack Sparrow!” As if that’s all he needs to do. As if just BEING Jack Sparrow is enough to guarantee he’ll escape intact (and strangely enough, most of the time it does). He’s not so much larger-than-life as he is not-of-this-earth. Jack seems to exist in his own little world for most of the movie, playing every situation as if he’s completely in control – and playing them so well that eventually he actually IS in control. Jack would much rather confuse the hell out of his opponent than fight, even though he’s no slouch in the derring-do department when he needs to be, and somehow or other he always seems to come out on top. Frankly, only Johnny Depp could pull him off. A noted eccentric himself, only he could play such an eccentric character and give him a real sense of life and dimension. Infusing his physicality with a drunken swagger and a spastic energy (Depp has said that Keith Richards was an inspiration for the character), tricked out with gold teeth and bejeweled dreadlocks, Depp creates a character that is easy to laugh at, easy to underestimate…which is just what Jack WANTS you to do, so that when he turns the tables and reveals that it was all part of his clever plan, you never see it coming.

As a counterbalance to Johnny Depp’s brink-of-insanity performance, we have Geoffrey Rush as the evil Barbossa. A classically-trained, Oscar-winning actor, Rush is basically taking the Sir Lawrence Olivier route here: brilliant actor having a damned good time hamming it up. Where Jack Sparrow is something of a deconstruction of the classic image of the pirate, Barbossa is the embodiment of it. An arrogant, intimidating monster of a man with a thick West Country accent, he would not be out of place standing beside Robert Newton’s Long John Silver. He even manages an “ARR!” at a surprisingly appropriate moment. And yet Barbossa also manages to be a bit more complex than your typical villain: he is truly suffering under his curse, and the audience sympathizes with him. His interactions with Jack Sparrow are like those of estranged brothers: both so similar in their intellect, in their ability to twist words and manipulate situations to their advantages, yet so diametrically opposed, so resentful of one another. It takes a talented actor to create such a character, and Geoffrey Rush certainly fits the bill there.

Mention also needs to go to the crew behind the movie: director Gore Verbinski, cinematographer Dariusz Wolski, and the special-effects team of Industrial Light and Magic. Despite its length, the movie flows well and rarely drags, and looks great. Iconic images abound, from the classic “ghost ship” look of the Black Pearl, with its ragged sails and undead crew, to the gold-filled cavern on Isla de Muerta, an image straight out of the original ride. Costumes and makeup are beautiful, looking stylized and realistic at the same time; you know the story is set in a fantasy world, but that fantasy world looks real enough in its own right. And the CG effects to create the pirates’ skeletal forms are remarkable: every undead pirate has a unique look which is carried over into their undead forms. They’re not just faceless zombies; you can tell who’s who. The final battle, which takes place in the Isla de Muerta caverns, is a revelation of movie-making technology, as the pirates move and in and out of random shafts of moonlight, turning from normal to skeletal forms and back again. The effect is seamless. A minor triumph for ILM.

One of the movie’s great strengths is a sense of awareness about its own fantastic nature. Creating a “self-aware” movie can be a dangerous proposition. More often than not, a movie that deliberately nods at its audience comes across as trying too hard. But Curse of the Black Pearl manages to sidestep that trap, being self-aware without going overboard. The movie takes the conventional view of pirates and sea lore and turns it on its ear, and it does this through the character of Elizabeth. Elizabeth is apparently the 18^th-century equivalent of a comic book geek, having read the myths and legends about piracy and the lore of the sea, so she knows exactly how to deal with the pirates when they come to raid Port Royal (which brings an added dimension to the running gag about The Code; here we have a universe where everyone knows how pirates are SUPPOSED to act). She’s also read about the exploits of Jack Sparrow, and knows every outlandish legend attributed to him. The power of myth and legend is a thematic element that runs throughout the movie. Jack actively uses his legendary status as a tool to get what he needs; whenever he says, “I’m Captain Jack Sparrow” to some unfortunate crewmember, he doesn’t need to elaborate any further. Jack’s legendary escape from the island where Barbossa first marooned him becomes a minor plot point, where he is forced to shatter Elizabeth’s romantic illusions and tell her how he REALLY escaped. It comes back to the “rock star” element of Jack Sparrow; the fame that precedes the man is far more impressive than the man himself. The movie acknowledges the dichotomy, and embraces it. We have a fictional universe here where reality seems fluid, depending on who’s telling the story. And Jack tells the best stories, so he’s the one in control.

I do love this movie, but as much as I love it, there is something bittersweet about watching it after Pirates of the Caribbean became a franchise. There’s an appealing innocence to be found in The Curse of the Black Pearl, mainly because it was meant to stand alone. Not expecting to ever make any sequels, the filmmakers threw everything they had into it. So that when sequels WERE called for, they had to dream it up all over again, try to get lightning to strike twice. That doesn’t always work. In fact, more often than not it doesn’t. Because movie trilogies – whether it be something as revered as the original Star Wars trilogy, or something as reviled as the Matrix movies – tend to all follow the same pattern: the first movie, originally meant to stand alone, introduces the characters and the universe. The second movie introduces the central conflict, and the third movie resolves the conflict. So basically, instead of a single unified story, what you actually have are TWO stories, one of which is broken down into two parts. And it’s in that second story that the movies often take a more serious tone. Danger becomes more real, the plot becomes less fun, and beloved characters often go down roads you don’t necessarily want to see them going down. Such was the case of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, and while I do find the other movies in the series enjoyable too, in a lot of ways I wish it had just stayed the one movie. The one perfect little swashbuckler that nobody was expecting much of, and that made everybody love pirates again.

Oh well. I can always take a lesson from Jack Sparrow himself, and choose my own reality. So I shall leave minor unpleasantries behind, and seek that horizon. And seek some rum while I’m at it…

Things To Look For:

- In the same vein as the aforementioned self-aware streak in the movie, throughout Curse of the Black Pearl are interspersed homages to the original park ride. There are scenes directly lifted from the ride. The jailhouse dog with the ring of keys. Scenes of debauchery and plunder seen in Tortuga (including “the redhead” who holds a grudge against Jack). Young Elizabeth’s children’s song, which just happens to be “A Pirate’s Life For Me.” The homages all add to the fun of the movie, the sense that this movie, if not directly based on the ride, takes place in the same universe as the ride.

- In a like manner, as an homage to those old classic pirate films, Curse of the Black Pearl is positively infested with memorable secondary characters. The filmmakers have often spoken of the fact that one of the things that make the older movies so great was the presence of the character actors who frequented the films, creating these unique background figures and dispensers of comic relief. That kind of actor unfortunately is a rare thing these days, but the characters were written specifically to evoke them. The secondary characters are almost as appealing as our main characters – in some ways, even more so. Gibbs, with his jolly demeanor and voice designed to dispense exposition. Cotton, the mute with a parrot that does all his talking for him. Jacobi the mad bomber with his perpetually-smoldering beard. Pintel and Ragetti’s dysfunctional family dynamic. Feisty Anna Maria, one of Jack Sparrow’s angry exes. Marty the dwarf, who exists apparently because every pirate crew needs a dwarf. They are all memorable in their own unique ways, and are in the movie just enough to make it all the more fun to watch.

- Orlando Bloom. I’ve taken heat from many circles for my defense of Young Mister Bloom’s acting ability, but I stand by my assertions. Curse of the Black Pearl was, in my opinion, the movie where he found his true acting vocation: the 21^st century’s answer to Errol Flynn. He’s got those perfect movie star looks, and he can buckle a swash better than just about anyone else working today. Granted, such a role doesn’t require Shakespearean range, but it’s a role that he fits extremely well. Orlando may not be the greatest actor in the world, but he’s young yet. Talent can only come from experience, and he still has many years to come into his own. At any rate, the character of Will Turner is a harder role than you’d think. It’s basically a Luke Skywalker role. Or a D’Artagnan role. It’s the role of the naïve idealistic young warrior, ostensibly the hero of the story, but in reality the straight man to a character much cooler than him who keeps stealing the show. So to those who criticize Young Mister Bloom, I say: YOU try not getting upstaged by Johnny Depp.

- One of the complaints I’ve heard about Curse of the Black Pearl is that it’s too long. And it IS a lengthy movie; at 141 minutes, it’s about an hour longer than most audience members would prefer to devote to watching a summer blockbuster. But I’m forgiving of its length. First of all, because it flows pretty quickly; it doesn’t really FEEL like it’s as long as it is. And secondly, I’m of the opinion that Gore Verbinski’s movie is long for the same reason that Peter Jackson’s movies are long: over-enthusiasm. He’s not trying to deliberately make an epic; he’s simply enjoying himself too much. He’s having as much fun making the movie as we are watching it, and just doesn’t want it to end. So few directors show that level of love for their project; whenever I see it, I must give the proper respect.

Written words (c) 2008-2010 Tim o'Brien. Not to be used without permission. Other content, including images, is intended as a Fair Use pursuant to 17 U.S.C. sec. 107.

Date Posted: June 1^st, 2008

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