Review of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) by Jason M — 29 Jun 2013

When I first saw this, I was young and still prone to cringing at any horror aspects introduced to a film. That being said, I was always traumatized by jump-scares and anything remotely scary. I wasn't a fan of this genre. Curse of the Black Pearl would have to be that film that helped me to grow and overcome that chink in my character, even though I still despise horror films and gore. But while these in my opinion don't detract from a movie, it's over excess that does.

Anyway, back to Pirates of the Caribbean. This is the film that put Johnny Depp and all the other actors in it on the map for me, and give me something to look out for in the future. When I first saw this, I thought it was amazing, and it was a really enjoyable film to watch, especially since it is a Disney film. This is a first in a series of good movies, and is the strongest out of all of them. Everyone plays a solid role and a good character, and the acting in this was brilliant. It really felt I was taken back to the days where England was still colonizing and exploring the world, and pirates were running amok. That in mind, if I was to choose to be any kind of pirate, it would have to be Jack Sparrow. He reshaped and recreated the concept of the pirate, and I believe the film reshaped the idea of the pirate genre in general.

The story was solid, simple and easy to follow. Geoffrey Rush's character and role as the main antagonist was brilliant, and all the secondary characters were brilliant too. The jokes were fresh, the comedy was good, and the action was brilliant. It also presents a new type of enemy in the form of undead pirates, and while ghost pirates have been used before, I do believe that they were never used to this extent, which makes for a great film.

All in all, counting the romance, actions, slight bits of scares, characters, acting, story and story elements, Pirates of the Caribbean is a brilliant movie and worth watching again and again.