Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (***)

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL
A film review by Steve Rhodes

Copyright 2003 Steve Rhodes

RATING (0 TO ****): ***


Sometimes it is a single performance that makes a movie. So it is in
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL. Without Johnny
Depp's enigmatic work as Jack Sparrow, the movie would have been at best
passable and at worst tiresome. But with prissy swagger and loveable
bravado, he's a pirate captain who steals your heart as he tries to steal
some treasure and save his reputation in the process. Among the film's many
on-going jokes is that pirates operate under supposedly strict rules that
are actually more like guidelines.



The miniscule plot involves a group of pirates working under the heinous
Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), who commands an infamous ship known as the
Black Pearl. Whenever they attack a town, they leave no survivors. Captain
Sparrow questions this folk tale by reasoning that someone must have lived,
or no one would know about the Black Pearl. BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM's Keira
Knightley plays Elizabeth, the governor's daughter who finds herself an
unwilling passenger on the Black Pearl. Orlando Bloom plays the humble
blacksmith who pines for Elizabeth and would be willing to lay down his life
in order to save hers. There's also a ghost story full of some scary
skeletons who refuse to die.



But what the movie is really about is non-stop mayhem. The movie is based
on a Disneyland ride, and it shows -- in the best way possible. I've always
liked the wonderfully hokey Pirates of the Caribbean ride. The movie based
on it is just as much adolescent fun. It speaks to the inner pirate in us
all. (Thankfully, the film is nothing like THE COUNTRY BEARS, Disney's
atrocious first attempt to turn a park attraction into a film.) There isn't
anything wrong with the picture except its running length. Director Gore
Verbinski (THE RING) should have chopped a full half-hour off of it in order
to get it into fighting trim. After this picture, I can't wait for the next
Disneyland-ride-turned-movie, THE HAUNTED MANSION, starring Eddie Murphy.
Hopefully that film will help Murphy get his career back on track.



PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL runs 2:20. It is
rated PG-13 for "action/adventure violence" and would be acceptable for kids
around 9 and up.



My son Jeffrey, age 14, who loves Jerry Bruckheimer films like this one,
gave it ***. He liked the music and the cast, especially Depp. He thought
the pacing of the fighting sequences was perfect in that they were never
allowed to run on too long.



The film is playing in nationwide release now in the United States. In the
Silicon Valley, it is showing at the AMC and the Century theaters.



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