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It’s hard to believe that fifteen years have passed since Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was first released. The film spawned four sequels, all to varying degrees of success, that have managed to keep the franchise alive in our minds over the years. Black Pearl is still my favorite of all of the films in the franchise and I have a few thoughts on why that is.
The Cast
Every single member of the cast in this film nailed their performance. So much has been said about Johnny Depp over the years as Captain Jack Sparrow that it’s difficult to add anything new to the conversation. Depp does a great job as the captain who is at times brilliant and at others completely clueless. He’s a slave to his vices and they hold a lot of weight in his decisions. He’s a womanizer, a thief, a drunkard, and, well, a pirate, but he manages to be likeable at the same time.
Orlando Bloom as Will Turner and Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Swann play a perfectly love struck couple. Both of them turn in excellent performances that allow them to show off their comedic side as well. I believed that Will was willing to do anything for Elizabeth and vice versa.
Geoffrey Rush as Captain Barbossa was, at least in my opinion, just as brilliant in his role as Depp was as Sparrow. While Barbossa is definitely a bit more despicable than Swann, he has a certain charisma about him and even a hefty dose of honesty that makes you want to follow him into battle. The rest of the pirates, particularly Pintel (Lee Arenberg) and Ragetti (Mackenzie Crook), did wonderful jobs as well.
Although they don’t get as much attention as Depp, Rush, Bloom, or Knightley, Jonathan Pryce (Governor Swann) and Jack Davenport (Commodore Norrington) are just as worthy of praise. Pryce’s well meaning patriarch was portrayed as a relatively honest man who was just a tad bit cowardly. Norrington was the saddest character in the film in my opinion. He seemed to truly love Elizabeth despite having an ego as large as the British fleet. His character developed even more in the next two sequels.
The Music
If I hum a film’s theme or a particular character’s theme long after I’ve left the theater, it means that the music made a significant impression on me. If I hum those same tunes many years down the road, the film’s score really made an impression on me. Only a few scores have done this to me over the years, most of them composed by John Williams or Danny Elfman, but Hans Zimmer and Klaus Badelt’s score for Black Pearl is right up there with Williams and Elfman, as I find myself humming their theme at randoms times. The music added to the danger, adventure, and excitement of the story. It also added to the nautical theme of the film.
The Director
Gore Verbinski is a hit-and-miss director. When he’s on, he’s almost perfect. When he’s off, his films are still pretty good, but not for everyone. I thought that he did a great job with Black Pearl and its first sequel, Dead Man’s Chest. His direction in At World’s End was less impressive. To me, the third film in the series was confusing, rushed, and there were character changes that just didn’t jive with me. With Pearl, Verbinski kept things moving at a decent pace that allowed the plot to unfold on its own without falling behind all of the action in the film.
The Source Material
Say what you want about Disney, but they know how to tie nostalgia and adventure together in a film. Many people have fond memories of the classic Pirates of the Caribbean ride located at Disney’s theme parks, so it was a no-brainer for many of them to check out this film. Across all of the films in the series, Disney has managed to weave in certain parts of the ride as an Easter Egg for fans of the theme park attraction. I’m one of those suckers that looks for these Easter Eggs. Since 2006, Disney has modified the ride in their parks across the globe to include characters from the films.
For those unfamiliar with the theme park attraction, Disney made sure to highlight the action in the film’s trailer and used big names like Depp and Bloom to draw in other moviegoers. Everybody loves a pirate, right?
Conclusion
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl wasn’t the first Disney film based on one of the the company’s theme park rides (that would be Tower of Terror, a 1997 television film starring Steve Guttenberg and Kirsten Dunst), but it is definitely one of the most successful ones. Pearl grossed just over 650 million dollars. Two of its sequels (Dead Man’s Chest and On Stranger Tides) grossed over one billion dollars each and the other two (At World’s End and Dead Men Tell No Tales) have both cleared the eight hundred million dollar mark. Without the surprise success of the first film, though, none of the sequels might have been made despite Disney saying that a trilogy was planned.
Other Disney theme park-based film franchises began and ended with one film. Tomorrowland (2015) bombed despite having amazing visuals and George Clooney as a star. Disney’s other 2003 theme park film, The Haunted Mansion, wasn’t scary enough for thrill seekers and many found that the plot was too adult for families with younger children. We won’t even talk about The Country Bears (which, sadly, has some brilliant music in it). Only Pirates has seemed to really connect with its audience. Another theme park-based film, Jungle Cruise, is scheduled for release in late 2019 and will star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Emily Blunt. I wonder if it will be the next big theme park franchise film series for Disney?
As always, thanks for taking time out of your day to read my thoughts. Did you enjoy The Curse of the Black Pearl like me? Whether you did or didn’t, let me know what you thought about the film in the comments section.
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Ken's Alternate Universe! 