“Slow to Sail, but Worth the Voyage”

You can almost smell cannon smoke, can almost feel the exhilaration of being in a sword duel and can almost feel the thrill of being on the open sea in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean. The key word here is “almost.” Pirates of the Caribbean is almost the swashbuckling adventure that you want it to be, but not quite. The plot takes a while to get out of the bay, and when it finally reaches open water, the few twists that exist in the script leave you with the feeling that you almost had a good time.

The movie opens with pirate Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) scheming to steal a ship, while simultaneously attempting to give the Red Coats the slip. He crosses blades with Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), a blacksmith apprentice, and son of a notorious pirate. Will, eager to leave the blacksmith shop and become a pirate, joins Jack after the two strike up a tenuous friendship. The pair of pirates steal a British ship and pursue the grossly-fabled and greatly-feared, Black Pearl—a pirate ship with sails that look like Swiss Cheese and swabbies that turn into skeletons when bathed in moonlight.

The skipper of the Pearl, Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), is in pursuit of the last piece of gold that came from Cortez’ cache. The curse that holds Barbossa and his crew in a pseudo-limbo state—neither living, nor dead—will be lifted when the last medallion, covered with the blood of a member of a certain pirate family, is returned to the chest. After several ship battles and several sword fights, it is discovered that Will, son of infamous Bootstrap Bill, is the only one that can break the curse. Barbossa’s bony men ambush a British ship, which only has a skeleton crew aboard and make short work of the Red Coats (bullets don’t kill skeletons). In a climactic moment, when Barbossa and Jack are locked in an epic duel, Will cuts his hand and tosses the blood-spattered gold piece into the brimming treasure chest and Jack shoots Barbossa with his gun. Barbossa falls over dead, and at that moment, the tide is turned on the ship, where Barbossa’s crew is swiftly defeated.

Pirates of the Caribbean succeeds on several levels; the art direction and costuming is superb. The effects are great, as would be expected, and the acting is very good. In fact, Johnny Depp’s performance is so superior as the nutty, quirky, shifty Jack Sparrow (that’s “Captain Jack Sparrow,” thank you), that it’s no stretch to say that the movie would have flopped without him. Depp infuses the flick with a certain degree of irreverence and levity that would have been sorely missed in his absence.

Thankfully, the film is devoid of any sayings or references that are out of time or place (I call them Disneyisms), which have been employed far too often in most modern Disney movies. On the whole, the dialogue if fairly true to the time period it represents and is consistently humorous.

Pirates of the Caribbean is fun, summer entertainment that should please a large audience, even if it fails to deliver the best story possible. I guess dead men aren’t the only ones who can’t tell tales.

Rating: 2 1/2

Tags: Action, Adventure, Fantasy