The likes of 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl' have been rare indeed since the days of Errol Flynn. But forget him. This movie never asks to be taken seriously.
[With a correction over an egg-on-face case of mistaken identity.] A fast-paced, wild adventure with magnificent ships, fine locations (and sets), and a more than adequate period feel, this is a film for a big, big screen and the best sound you can find (we settled into our favourite seats in the Max Linder (French).
Young Elizabeth Swann, daughter of a British governor, gets her first inkling of the ruthlessness of pirates right at the outset as we join her on board a naval vessel making its way to her Caribbean island home.
There and then, as the crew haul a boy who survived the attack from the sea and mayhem looms out of the mist, we know this film is going to be a knock-out. It's the medallion the youngster is wearing round his neck which is part of the curse of the Black Pearl, the fastest and most feared pirate ship on the high seas.
The brief introduction over, almost no opening credits to worry about, the story takes off and doesn't stop for a second, full of action, good jokes, a fabulous treasure, spectacular fights on land and on sea and stunning special effects which never get in the way.
Johnny Depp as dare-devil pirate Captain Jack Sparrow; Orlando Bloom as the lad plucked from the waves turned blacksmith's apprentice, first-class swordsman, hater of pirates and ready to die for the governor's daughter; Geoffrey Rush as the wicked mutineer in command of the legendary Black Pearl; and Keira Knightley as Elizabeth, a heroine off the best of the old blocks, with brains and bravery as well as beauty: these four head an impeccable cast.
Though heads and other body parts fly and there's a wonderful gag with the cutlery, the gore is comic-book enough only to leave you with minor shivers regarding what a monstrous machine of war the early 19th-century flagship of the fleet must have been. The pirate attack on a garrison-port is just realistic enough to give you some notion of why the blighters were sometimes summarily hanged with scarcely a trace of a trial.
Article comments
1 - Ryan
Good review, but you mixed up Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp.
Johnny Depp is the pirate Jack Sparrow, Orlando Bloom is the blacksmith's apprentice. Huge difference between the two.
2 - taliesin
I squirm at sword-point.
The man is, of course, absolutely right.
La vache! A silly mistake like that, even after Marianne and I had discussed elfin ears and absence thereof.
Thanks for your remark on the rest.