A toothsome romp; Hollywood's answer to Monkey Island

Rating: 10/10 (18 August 2003)

I am a longtime pirate fan and amateur pirate scholar. I went into this film expecting a great deal, and I got it all and more. Outstanding performances from everyone, beautiful special effects, excellent direction, and not-too-visible Bruckheimer. The only issues I had were as follows:
1. Keira Knightly is too...modern-looking, I suppose. She didn't sit quite right with me in this role. I would have cast someone who looks less like every other hip young thing. I would have liked someone a little more unusual or remarkable; less cookie-cutter 90's starlet. She did a decent job, however.
2. The music, while decent, was not up to snuff with the rest of the film. At first they had Alan Silvestri, then Hans Zimmer, and somehow ended up with Klaus Badelt, who's not a feature composer at all. He does fill-in music, and it sort of showed. I would have preferred a riotous Zimmer theme like we had in MTI, or maybe even a Goldsmith. Again, this is a very very minor point that I'm not going to quibble over. My vote is 10/ 10
Those of us who played the Monkey Island series waited so long to see a decent pirate flick. The much-maligned Cutthroat Island had the swash, and Muppet Treasure Island had the charm, but not until Curse of the Black Pearl have these ingredients been combined properly. No longer will the spat-upon swashbuckling genre be relegated to cheap parody and jokes about Errol Flynn. Bloom was a perfect Guybrush, Rush a gorgeous LeChuck, Knightly a fair Elaine, and Depp is (as always) without compare.
I will be spending more of my hard-earned money to see this at least once again. Well done, Hollywood! Now let's see what you can do with Peter Pan.