Depp and Rush shine

Rating: 8/10 (29 October 2005)

Everybody likes pirates! (Well, not the music industry, but whatever...) Johnny Depp shines as Captain Jack Sparrow, a cleverly klutzy pirate who is in search for the Black Pearl and the crew that mutinied it from him. Leader of the mutineers is Captain Barbossa, a mean dirty pirate with a curse that sends him searching for the pieces of some ancient Aztec gold... and the blood of a good pirate's son.
It also involves a side story about that young son (Will Turner, played by Orlando Bloom) and the love of his life (Elizabeth Swann, played by Keira Knightley), but nobody cares.
Honestly, Johnny Depp MADE the movie. His perfect characterization of a quirky swashbuckler is both funny and memorable. His personality and charisma shines from screen to screen as he tries to figure out how to get what he wants when everybody else seems to be against him.
Depp by himself, though, would have made for a strained and bad movie indeed. Even a good actor with a good character can be dire and silly in a movie that doesn't compliment them. Thus we have Geoffrey Rush's Barbossa, the driven evil that compliments Depp's Sparrow well. Rush obviously had a lot of fun with the role and it's a real joy to see him, especially when working off of Depp.
It also has some pretty good dialog, stuff to make you laugh in between action moments. Very quotable, stuff like, "Where's the rum?" which is bound to stay in fanboy lingo for ages to come.
--PolarisDiB