Welcome aboard the reverie of a fantastical universe starring swashbuckling pirates! We should pause and ponder for a moment, to appreciate the level of clarity, depth and meticulousness that went into building this world! From the tone, mood, colour, make-ups, dirt, costumes, language, vocabularies, codes, regulations, terms and downright to the way the characters are, everything is freaking marvellous!
Essentially, The Curse of the Black Pearl is the story that surrounds 3 individuals who are connected together by a single common thread - piracy. From the very beginning, you are introduced to Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), the Governor's daughter who finds the idea of pirates fascinating. She reads, talks and is sort of in awe with them. There's enough visual storytelling through the tight dress sequence to let us know that she doesn’t fit the high class society she's born into. Pirates are feared & despised of by the royal community, and such circumstance is established strongly at the start. This also plays into Elizabeth saving & meeting his would-be lover, Will Turner (Orlando Bloom). Speaking of our second character, he is a man with a past. He is hideous about the fact that he may be after all, a pirate by lineage. He constantly refrains himself being associated with anything at all, pirate. Do these two find the place where they belong? Do they after all, square in with reality?
It is time. It is time to talk, or boast about one of the most iconic movie characters of all time! There's nothing that hasn't been told about this persona till date, yet there's so much more to tell! If there's only one purpose Johnny Depp stepped foot on Earth, it is to play the evergreen, charming, amusing, rumour-ridiculing, drunk, non-trustable, cocky, comical, sceptical, eccentric, dodgy, swanky, witty, naughty, smart, resourceful, sneaky, off-kilter, womanizing, wacky, lunatic and dishonest scallywag whose full of lies and deceptions, Captain Jack Sparrow! The pirate's mannerisms the thespian brought to screen is an unseen before experience that's out of this world! Why does he walk like that? Why does he talk like that? What is he mumbling in between stutters? Why are his comebacks awesome? No one knows why, but God was it wildly, outlandishly outstanding!
Jack Sparrow, or as we should call him, Captain Jack Sparrow is a man with street knowledge. He is not your regular hero who physically outmuscles everyone in the room to escape troubles. Every time he becomes the prisoner of situations, both literally & figuratively, he outwits them with sly tricks! The villains know they need his opinion on matters. Changing sides from moment to moment and brainwashing opposite mates are parts and parcels of his trades! Notice how a mysterious hint at his past and compass are brought up in each and every film of the series, waiting to be answered in the fifth instalment.
Another vital character to the tale is Captain Hector Barbossa, portrayed professionally by the great Geoffrey Rush! Both him and Sparrow had an ordeal about the lost treasures of Isla de Muerta, until the antagonist decides to mutiny and maroon the original captain of Black Pearl on a deserted island. But by stealing the Aztec gold coins, a curse is raised upon the crew, resulting in undead men! One of the medallion's last pieces is within Elizabeth's grasp, found while rescuing Will Turner. This is a doing of Bootstrap Bill, as a response to the unfair action by Barbossa towards Sparrow. So, we have a captain who wants his ship back, a villain who wants to lift a curse on himself and a blacksmith who wants to rescue his lover. All these three motivations tie in organically in an adventurous plot across the borders of this world!
As for the chronological timeline, most of us wonder what might have happened in between the time span young Ms. Swann found the coin and Barbossa's return to claim it back 10 years later. It would have taken a while for the pirates to realize that their action resulted in a dreadful curse. Therefore, as per mentioned in the movie, they've been hunting down settlements after settlements in hopes to locate the 882nd piece of Cortez's gold. Bill Turner is the culprit, therefore William Turner's blood is the right one to be sacrificed.
The screenplay's flow of events is smooth. Story points move forward by satisfying each characters' dramatic wants. There are scenes to show how events are taking place, therefore no out-of-no-where surprises. When it happens, if you trace back, you'll see it's already rooted. Course of action and plot points are clear. It is hard to balance 3 characters in Set Up, but the makers did it effortlessly! However, yes, flashbacks are mostly told on verbal, and it does come across exposition heavy. But here's the reason why it doesn't feel so much - the captivating narration! Storytelling by the ones who are narrating the exposition arrests your attentions. This has a lot to do with the ghastly elements, mystery fillings, haunting aura, storytelling demeanour and choices of words involved in the narrations.
Visual effects work here is spectacular! Heavily decomposed skeleton pirates are terrifying! Just look at how the transitions of anatomy structure are composedly shown as they walk under the moonlight and shun from it at points! Wine flowing down from Barbossa's ribs is unforgettable! Production design is immaculate! Cinematography is just right; the underwater shots with fishes swimming by is a blue dream. Klaus Badelt's theme music is a classic gold! Swashbuckling, knife fights, footwork and ships firing cannons at each other on a grand scale are entertaining to the max! Dialogue deliveries are timely & amazing too!
Performances are flawless! In a universe that's fully aware of itself, we are inclined to fall in love with these one-of-a-kind characters. Putting the characterizations and appearances aside, it's the little nuances of behaviour that define them. The actors are constantly acting in the background, and Gore Verbinski specifically captures those on camera to make us notice all the subtle actions. The mistakes that they make, make it all the more realistic! For example, Ragetti (Mackenzie Crook) who always loses his wooden eye and gets a fork stuck in it at an occurrence, Jack Sparrow giving hand signals to Will to save him, stepping onto the dock as the boat sinks and outraging because the rums are gone, Pintel (Lee Arenberg) hating the usage of "Partel" ended up using it himself or even the uncontrollable monkey! We wish to know how Mr. Gibbs (Kevin McNally) became a pirate after serving as a Navy officer, though.
Favourite sequences are Jack and Will lifting a boat underwater & walking underneath it, Sparrow standing on a blade to prevent his neck from snapping, Will planting a grenade inside a skeleton crew member and pushing him away from moonlight, surprise blow when blood sacrifice actually just mean cutting the palm of a hand, Jack stealing one of the Aztec gold to become the undead as it makes the duel fair and Barbossa's death as it is opportune as Jack Sparrow always says.
Why would the guarding dog have the prison key? How sure is Elizabeth that a 1000 feet smoke signal will coincidentally get the Royal Navy's attention? Or where did she get the boat to escape from Dauntless to the treasure cave? Drunkard emerging to hit Jack's head from the back and Barbossa's hunt during the same time as Jack's being captured at Royal Port are conveniences. Governor Swann's (Jonathan Pryce) approval of her daughter to marry a blacksmith could have been strengthened better. We would need to assume that Elizabeth's dress was stitched or taken from stolen archives by the all-men pirate ship crew.
Commodore James Norrington: "You are, without doubt, the worst pirate I've heard of."
Captain Jack Sparrow: "But you have heard of me."