Bad trailer...But GOOD Movie!

Rating: Null/10 (25 July 2003)

I remember once I had this uncanny knack for predicting the merit of a film by its trailer. A few years ago, I was proved wrong with Legally Blonde, a delightful nugget. Pirates of the Carribean, I'm sad to say, deeply misleads in the preview. For one, the trailer showcases, by far, the least funny line in a film full of extremely funny lines. The upper-class British girl smacks a Pirate saying, "You like pain? Try wearing a corset." I'm thinking, "They put that in the preview to whet your appetite? Just imagine how much worse it gets." I knew this movie would do well financially, considering the producer and the cast and the appeal of seeing Pirates swashbuckle once again, I mean, Jerry Bruckheimer couldn't lose money if he lost a leg and was in a butt-kicking contest. So I also knew people would see this movie, a lot of people. But that trailer nagged at me all the way in to the screening, thinking about how many not-funny one-liners we'd endure in the course of seeing all these stereotypes go against type.
And then Johnny Depp comes on screen. He is proudly standing in the crow's nest of his mighty ship, and the film is immediately off to the right start in the very next shot. I don't want to ruin it, and maybe the guys making the trailer didn't want to either. There's something to be said for not laying your cards on the table early, like so many movies do in their marketing campaign. It only took one cut to melt down the icy walls I had erected in my critical mind, and I was immediately sold. This movie is by far the best example of comedy, action, and good genre film-making of the summer. I say genre film-making because it is very in line with the classic Pirate archetypes. Except, of course, for Johnny Depp. His performance, sans the brilliant script he's given, would seem anachronistic, out of the realm of possibility for this era and tone of film-making. He'd seem too hip, too funny, too above it all while wallowing in the filth. However, Depp serves as both the audience's ambassador to the story, and the story's greatest asset. In one of the funniest lines in the movie, Orlando Bloom's Will Turner and the first mate are discussing how Depp was betrayed and then stranded to die on a deserted island. When Will asks how he escaped, the first mate says he tethered rope around sea turtles and made a raft. Predictably, Will asks where he got the rope, and then in a fearsome low-angle, Depp bellows, "With human hair...from my back." We cut away immediately to the next scene, and the rest of the film plays much the same. When a movie has four or five truly funny lines or moments, it will milk those for all their worth. Literally, they'll make a running gag. But "Pirates" runs out of room for the old jokes with all the new jokes, making this film nearly a laugh-a-minute action comedy. I say nearly only because of the brilliant action sequences, that are still light on their toes, but exciting too. There are a few running jokes, the biggest being that Pirates are really despicable people, and when we think they'll outgrow their greed and become true heroes, they wallow reluctantly in their cowardice. In one great scene, Keira Knightley's Elizabeth leads the charge to take Depp's loyal crew to rescue their beloved captain. They aren't following. She beckons with the reason that Depp would come back for them. In the next cut, she's rowing alone. "Bloody Pirates!" Depp, therefore, is the greatest pirate anyone's ever seen. He plays every angle, but chooses the heroic when there's nothing better to do. But everyone in the film has their moment of true heroism. They don't do things that seem like the old-hat mode of turning unlikely heroes into heroes. All the cowards in "Pirates" remain cowards, some endearing and some villainous, and all the heroes are truly heroic, even when they have their priorities out of whack. That's why you'll grow to like everybody, because they're all really good at what they do.
I will go see the sequel, and I may be disappointed, but at least I won't be disappointed until the movie's over, because the trailer will mislead the uninitiated into thinking it's another Bruckheimer explosion music video, and it is anything but.