A first rate adventure film.

Rating: 9/10 (11 August 2003)

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl is easily the most enjoyable blockbuster film of the silly season for one simple reason: its immensely good fun.

Its a classic tale of adventure on the high seas as blacksmith Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) discovers his true heritage as a pirate. The wonderful, surprise-laden plot is too intricately daft to spoil, suffice to say it rattles from start to finish with cursed medallions, sea battles, hidden islands, secret tunnels, treasure, ghostly scares, sword fights, betrayal, romance, action, adventure and of course pirates (both alive and "undead").

The whole cast is superb with Orlando Bloom playing the straight hero to Johnny Depp's hilarious and stunningly offbeat pirate Jack Sparrow (or "Captain" Jack Sparrow as he insists on being known). Kiera Knightly is wonderful as spunky love interest Elizabeth Swann, who gets a lot of the best lines (including some great gags about corsets). Geoffrey Rush makes a splendid villain, and Jonathan Pryce is marvellous as Knightly's cowardly father.

The script is sharp and often hysterically funny ("the pirate code is more like guidelines"). The special effects are stunning, as is the cinematography, which makes beautiful use of widescreen. The music score is appropriately rousing and Gore Verbinski directs the whole thing with a tremendously old fashioned sense of fun which makes this film rank up with the classic Hollywood swashbucklers like Captain Blood.

All in all, a first rate adventure film.