Spoilers

Rating: 8/10 (10 July 2004)

Pirates of the Caribbean : The Curse of the Black Pearl, directed by Gore Verbinksi (The Ring, and more importantly creator of the Budweiser Frogs) and starring Johnny Depp (Edward Scissorhands) Orlando Bloom (Lord of the Rings) Keira Knightly (Love Actually) and as the bad guy Geoffrey Rush (House on Haunted Hill) put this together with a superb cast of extras and back of actors and you have a great cast. That's exactly what Verbinski was able to do for this movie.
It all starts with the Governors daughter Elizabeth Swan (Knightly) as a young girl and her meeting with Will Turner (Bloom) although I thought this was a clever idea at first it did seem a little cheesy but mainly for one reason. A certain Mr Gibbs (Kevin McNally) is on the ship and shares his thoughts on Pirates, well they're not the thoughts of love let me tell you, but yet later in the movie he has become one?!?! Maybe I missed something along the lines but I don't think the drink alone will have destroyed his naval career and led him to a life that he so hated. Anyways I digress. This is the point in which Miss Swan sees the feared and fabled ship the Black Pearl, now personally after seeing the wreckage that she saw I'd probably try to stay away from pirates but not our miss Swan, in-fact she's probably more suited to being one herself than being just the Governors daughter. Soon enter Captain Jack Sparrow (Depp) and his rum induced drunken state that seems to last the whole 137 minutes that this movie lasts (not that I blame him, so long working alongside Mr Bloom and I'd probably be drinking too) Sparrow is probably one of the best thought out and acted characters I've seen in a long time really, too often you see wooden performances because actors just turn up and read the script to the camera, Johnny Depp has gone into a lot of effort to make what he thinks and what is a believable character (hence the Oscar nomination) his great escapes from Captian Norrington are although not breathtaking are cleverly thought out.
But what is a good pirate movie without a great villain? And that's exactly what Captain Barbossa (Rush) and his crew (including the Office star Mackenzie Crook) bring to the screen. This cursed band of pirates have only one thing to look for and that's the piece of amazon gold that currently resides around the neck of Elizabeth (remember the first part with Turner? Well he was wearing this gold around his neck and the lovely Miss Swan took it from him, yes that's right politicians and their families are just plain thieves) so when Elizabeth hides her last name fearing that they're just after the Governors daughter she chooses the wrong one in Turner. So the ride begins and the story is told of Will's father being a pirate on the Black Pearl who like the rest of the crew was cursed, the curse? Well whenever the moon hits them there true selves are brought to the surface. Great CGI is used for these exceptional looking crewmen which just adds to whole experience of the movie based on the Walt Disney ride, but in the whole was it worth the price of admission? Well if I'd paid when I saw it at the cinema.yes it would have been fortunately for me I was working there at the time so I got to see Pirates not only for free but about three days before the general release. Overall I'd give this movie 9/10 just lacking in that one aspect about Mr Gibbs I'm afraid Gore, otherwise fantastic