Film Details:
Directed by Gore Verbinski (The Ring)
Written by
Ted Elliott (Aladdin, Shrek)
Terry Rossio (Aladdin, Shrek)
Stuart Beattie (Kick, Joey)
Jay Wolpert (The Count of Monte Cristo)
Starring
Johnny Depp (Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands)
Geoffrey Rush (Shine, Quills, Finding Nemo)
Orlando Bloom (Dude! Legolas!)
Keira Knightley (Bend It Like Beckham)
Jonathan Pryce (Brazil, Tomorrow Never Dies)
Jack Davenport ("Ultraviolet", "Coupling")
Review: by Melissa (e-mail your faithful reviewer)
I had my doubts when I heard about this project. Disney. Trying to make a horror/adventure film. Off one of it's theme park rides. And Jerry Bruckheimer was going to produce it.
Poison, I thought. Box office poison. This was gonna suck.
Then they announced that Gore Verbinski, the man who renewed my faith in The American Horror film, was going to direct the project. And that Johnny Depp was going to star.
Then I saw the film, all 2-1/2 swashbuckling, swaggering, rum-swilling hours of it. I then had to go see it a second time, just so I could watch it at a drive-in with a bottle of rum at my side. Yeah!
Pirates of the Caribbean is a great engineering feat. It is light, rambunctious, sassy, and, best of all, FUN. It is everything a good summer blockbuster should be, and then some. Not only does it have top-of-the-line production values and a priceless cast, but it also possesses an unusually witty script and a relative lack of Disney pretension. This is a movie that is utterly comfortable about being a pirate flick. It's not about moralizing, or making you smarter, or changing your outlook on life, or anything like that. It's about swinging around on ropes and saying "Avast!" and having a damn good time while doing it.
Basically, The Pirates of the Caribbean is about A Pretty Young Thing (Keira Knightley), who is in love with another Pretty Young Thing (Orlando Bloom, with an embarassingly scant moustache), even though she is being courted by a Stuffy British Navy Captain (Ultraviolet's Jack Davenport). Then Swaggering Pirate Number 1 (Johnny Depp) shows up and steals the movie, just before Swaggering Pirate Number 2 (Geoffrey Rush) sails in and steals it back. The Female Pretty Young Thing gets abducted by Swaggering Pirate Number 2, so the Male Pretty Young Thing and Swaggering Pirate Number 1 team up to go get her. Then the Stuffy British Guys sail off after all of them, and all this cool nautical stuff happens.
Then the real juice of the movie gets going. It turns out that the Swaggering Pirate Number 2 wasn't interested in stealing the movie (though he does anyway). He wants the key to lifting the curse that is on his ship. It's the curse that really gives the film a wonderful twist, because it comes packaged with a great set of motivations and kick-ass special effects.
Consider this: there is not a single eyepatch, peg-leg, treasure map (with a big X), or hook-hand in this entire movie. There is, however, The Undead. Sorta.
There is also a monkey. A friend of mine once said that there are five things that are always fun in a movie: monkeys, robots, pirates, zombies, and cats that yowl from offscreen. The monkey in Pirates of the Caribbean covers three of these five bases in one fell swoop. Aww yeah!
The movie is packed with little elements like this. It's as if like the writers were sitting in a room for days saying, "What sort of cool shit can we do with a pirate movie that has never been done before? What else can we do with Johnny Depp? How can we tie it together and make it work?" And the beauty of it is, they pulled it off.
Much of the credit for pulling it off goes to Gore Verbinski, who directs with such panache that the 2-1/2 hour running time passes with offhanded ease. The rest of the credit goes to the cast. Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom don't have much to do, which is sad because the rest of the cast just runs circles around them. Geoffrey Rush plays the cursed pirate captain with such panache that he would steal the entire movie if it weren't for Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp alone is worth the price of admission, several times over. He makes the role of Captain Jack Sparrow the sort of role that makes it into movie legend. Jack Sparrow swaggers, slurs, and cakes on eyeliner like a strange high-seas hybrid of Keith Richards and a drunken drag queen. He's the swishy-est
After assets like that, the excellent costumes, sets, and special effects are really just icing on the cake. And, I have to admit, I loved the CGI. It was only used when necessary, and when it appeared on film, it was absolutely seamless. When was the last time you saw a summer blockbuster that actually made cannonball impacts with sparks and smoke, and not like napalm approximated on the Doom game engine. Very nice.
All this gushing does not mean that the movie is without flaws. The movie absolutely tanks about 10 minutes before the end credits roll, but, thankfully, that entire sequence takes place after the main climax of the film. I also have some beefs about Keira Knightley's acting and the way her character was written. And there are a whole host of factual errors and anachronisms that would give any self-respecting SCA or Renaissance Festival geek a host of trivia for trotting out at parties. Yet this stuff winds up being very minor compared to the amount of fun you can have with this movie.
So, yes, even if you usually detest big studio flicks, this one it worth a look. Especially if you can nab some rum to go with it. Mmmmm!
