"That's got to be the best pirate I've ever seen."

Rating: 9/10 (10 November 2017)

If you're ever in the mood for just a flat out entertaining flick, you can't go wrong with 'Curse of the Black Pearl". I wasn't writing these reviews when this movie first came out, didn't even know there was such a thing as IMDb. So I'm finally getting back to it this many years later and even though I'd forgotten a lot about the story, I was blown away all over again by the outrageous antics of Captain Jack Sparrow and those transition scenes where the skeleton pirates manifest in the moonlight. In fact, the story itself might be incidental to the special effects and physical stunts that highlight the action in the film. Johnny Depp of course makes the movie with his swish-buckling (yeah, I misspelled it on purpose) approach to the character, and you couldn't ask for a more fetching lady in distress than Keira Knightley, although she managed to hold her own against most of those menacing pirates quite nicely. Orlando Bloom and Geoffrey Rush round out the rest of the principal cast, and each did a superb job. I've never gotten beyond this movie's sequel, 'Dead Man's Chest', but watching this one again inspires me to go forward and check out all the rest.