With Rennaissance Festival season fast approaching where I live, I’ve been looking for things that remind me of it since I may or may not be going this year (if I do go, I’ll post about it). One of these things happened to be the first Pirates of the Carribean movie, which is obviously one of the best movies Disney’s made in recent history. Though I had seen all the memes and iconic moments compilations floating around on the Internet, I hadn’t actually watched Pirates of the Carribean: The Curse of the Black Pearl in years up until a week ago and now that I have, it’s time to talk about it.
#1: The Origins of the Movie
The fact that this movie and all the sequels that came from it was based off the immensely popular ride in Disneyland is insane to me. While I have never been to Disneyland and have no wish to go nowadays, from the research I’ve done on this, I can see so many parallels between the movie and the ride. Some examples of this are Jack Sparrow being smacked in the face by a redheaded wench in a red dress (which comes from the part of the ride where the pirates are selling the town’s women), Mr. Gibbs being found sleeping in a pigpen, Jack and Elizabeth singing “It’s a Pirate’s Life for Me”, the wine being shown pouring through Barbosa’s exposed ribcage, the imprisoned pirates trying to get the keys from the dog, the symbol for the movies, etc. That attention to detail is one of the things that really brings everything together, especially for the people who have gone to Disneyland and are fans of the ride.
#2: Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow
I’ve sort-of touched on Johnny Depp’s ability to act insane in my review of all three Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie adaptations, but I’ll say it again: He’s really good at playing insanity. The whole point of Jack Sparrow’s character is that he’s a highly inebriated, swashbuckling pirate who’s looking for his ship and more rum. He’s charismatic to the point where you can see how he could command a crew, but unlikeable enough where you can also see why Barbosa led a mutiny against him. Additionally, his backstory makes many of his actions – though impossible and most likely deadly in real life – seem probable while still allowing them to be comedic, making him a walking meme.
#3: CGI
I know I talk a lot about CGI in movie reviews on this blog, but with how common it is in movies nowadays, it’s something that can make or break it and, in this movie, it makes it. For something that came out in 2003, a time when CGI was generally mediocre if not atrocious, the CGI in The Curse of the Black Pearl was really good, looking incredibly believable (I won’t say realistic because none of the dead pirates would actually look like how they do in the movie). The quick changes between living to skeleton in the last fight scene between Jack and Barbosa was something that really stood out to me because it had to have taken days if not weeks of work to make it look so smooth and seamless.
#4: The Acting
Most of the acting in The Curse of the Black Pearl was great with the best performances coming from Johnny Depp (obviously) and Geoffrey Rush as Barbosa. Are their words and actions historically accurate? No. But they come off as how we think pirates acted and are convincing as characters. However, I think the worst performance in the movie came from Orlando Bloom. While his performance as Will Turner wasn’t horrible, Bloom has a tendency to come off as a bit overly dramatic (something that I also noticed in his performance as Legolas in The Lord of the Rings). This can make be used for some funny scenes (such as the “Aye. Avast!” scene when Jack’s stealing a ship), but in other scenes, it can become a bit annoying.
#5: The Music
There’s not a ton I can say about the music that hasn’t already been said before. To use Gen-Z terms, it just hits different, highlighting the comedic scenes, the epic fight scenes, the memes, etc. It gets a 10/10 from me.
#6: The Memes!!!
Within this one movie alone, there are so many scenes that can and already have been used as memes, which is what has made it so iconic, even 21 years after it came out. Just look at how many scenes people have compiled on the internet from The Curse of the Black Pearl alone just so they could make some jokes, especially around the time that the Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard trials were going on. This (once again) can be tied back to how erratic Jack Sparrow is, how well he was played by Johnny Depp, and how great the script writing was. The jokes are actually funny, the movie doesn’t take itself too seriously, and the slapstick humor is great.
I’m looking forward to watching the other movies as I can.
Until next time,
M.J.
The Tanuki Corner 
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