Striking visuals, adventurous story, amazing execution.

Rating: 9/10 (31 December 2003)

After years of enjoyable viewing of 21 Jump Street, some of us did not need this movie to appreciate Johnny Depp's talents and abilities as an actor. But for the rest of the world, this was the springboard for Depp's movie career.
The movie begins with a hauntingly beautiful child singing of pirates on the misty bow of a ship. She is cautioned not to bring pirates down on them, by singing of them. Just after, a small boy is found floating on a piece of wreckage, and the young girl child immediately identifies him as a pirate, and hides his true nature/identity from her father the Governor and the captain of the ship upon which they sail.
You then fade to the same little girl as a grown woman (Keira Knightly), dreaming of the day when she first found her William (Orlando Bloom) adrift in the sea. She's hidden his treasure in a secret compartment beneath one of the drawers in her bedside cabinet, and obviously treasures it, as she does him.
The remainder of the movie, she attempts to find herself, discover whom she really is, and please her father at the same time. No easy task of ANY daughter.
William has since become an apprentice to the blacksmith of the small seaside village in which they reside. He has learned his lessons so well, in fact, that his master sleeps in a peaceful but drunken slumber all the day while Will masters the work sent to their forge.
These two are obviously in love, but Will knows his place, and refuses to be familiar with her in any way, in the presence of her father the Governor. Not quite the way to woo the lady's heart, there, Will.
Enters now, Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), in a sinking water-filled schooner. He himself bears no small resemblance to a bilge-rat, as he rides the main mast of the sinking ship right up to the harbor of the same village in which Elizabeth and William reside; Port Royal.
His shenanigans will not be tolerated, as he soon learns, and he quickly finds himself in irons.
We discover that Captain Jack Sparrow was once the captain of the Black Pearl; the most feared pirate's ship to sail the Caribbean Sea. This ship is rumored to have black sails, be crewed by the damned, and captained by an evil darker than any other.
There has been some criticism of the vocabulary used by the pirates, but in reality, they did have quite the vocabulary. They had to trade in many different ports, using many different languages fluently in order to prevent themselves from being taken advantage of. These men were mostly self-educated, learning the hard way. And while most could not read and write, true enough, they could and would bargain with anyone which could uplift their situation.
They sought fame and riches. Having been heard of was akin to the gunslingers of the US Western days having wanted posters of themselves jealously secreted away within their own saddlebags. They lived by a strict code of ethics, and experienced a very unstable lifestyle; feasting one day, while enduring famine the next.
Also, the "mascara" some critics have criticized, was usually Kohl, used commonly by sea-farers of the time to block the sun out of their eyes, much like football players use black stick, today. It does create a rather dramatic look, but was a common technique used in the days of such men as these.
This story, while not wholly original, borrowed from every pirate movie I've ever seen, but uplifted and upgraded those old tales. It was extremely well told, convincingly executed, and brilliantly portrayed by Depp and Bloom. I've acquired a new respect for both of their work, of late, actually. And while this does not possess the epic qualities of some other recent productions, Bloom's talents were just as well exercised here as they were in his most recent success.
As for the wardrobe of the pirates, they were in the Caribbean; an exotic place, populated by people of colorful cultures. Their dress, while basically British, was properly colored by the islands in which they prowled.
Reportedly, having modeled his Jack Sparrow character closely after Keith Richards, Depp's flawless Cockney accent was quite believable and near perfect. He worked very hard on that portion of his character, as was obvious by his beautiful and colorfully wide use of the Cockney hyperbole. "All by me onsie," meaning all by myself, and so on.
There was one element with which I had some qualms, however. That of the undead army. Having recently seen LotR: RotK, I could not help but compare the undead armies to one another, and found that this one was a tiny bit lacking. Their movements were sometimes choppy, hesitant, clumsy and not surreal as was Jackson's. These lacked the graceful, floating ghostly quality that was exhibited in Jackson's masterpiece. They ~looked~ real enough, but their movements were awkward and clumsy.
Other than that, I was completely delighted with this endeavor, and cannot wait to see the next installment of this franchise. I hope it is a long-running one.
It rates an 8.8/10 from...
the Fiend :.