My Review of "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl"

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl came out back in 2003. For me, it's hard to think that it's been that long since this movie came out. At the time, this was a revolutionary movie because the special effects blew our minds. It was also a long time since they've had a swashbuckling movie out in the theatres. I remembered liking this movie back in the day. With the last few movies I've watched, I had a bit of nostalgia and decided to check it out.

The movie starts off in the past. We have a young Elizabeth on a ship out at sea. She's singing about pirates and soon the crew stops her as there are multiple superstitions that are being broken. Soon she sees a boy on a plank of wood in the sea. Everyone freaks out to save him. As they save him she finds a pirate pendant on him. He slowly arises only to tell her his name is Will. As he passes out they see the remnants of the ship he was on. Everything is blown to pieces and there's a pirate ship sailing off.

Fast forward years later, Elizabeth is now a beautiful young woman. Will is now a blacksmith. Enter, Captain Jack Sparrow. He's kind of a bumbling idiot character but somehow everything works out for him. No one knows if he's an idiot or a genius. That includes the audience because I can't tell if he's doing things on purpose or not. This is where the charm of the movie comes in.

Jack's purpose is to regain his old pirate ship the Black Pearl. Unfortunately, his old crew had a mutiny and took the ship from him. Now he's trying to figure out any way he can get his ship back. Little does the gang know, but the pirate pendant that Elizabeth took from Will when they first met has magical powers. This is basically the key to getting the Black Pearl back.

This is an interesting movie because no one trusts pirates but oddly enough they have no reason to distrust Jack. Jack tells them he's a liar but he doesn't really lie. He kind of tells them the truth the whole time and they just constantly distrust him. I don't know if this is brilliance or misguided ideologies. For some reason, it all still makes total sense in this movie. A lot of the fun is in the dialogue within this movie. They have a lot of word play that is quite playful and fun. It's very old school but quite elementary so that the whole family can enjoy.

What really got me into this movie back in the day was the special effects. After all these years, this movie still looks fantastic. Though there are certain CGI that look a little outdated, for the most part it has stood the test of time. I liked how they played around with the moonlight to show different versions of the antagonists and this is done quite quickly. It is still mesmerizing to watch even though the effects are quite dated by today's standards. They did it in a way where it wasn't too cartoony and I kind of miss that in today's CGI. I think this is what kind of helps the effects stand the test of time.

Overall, this was an enjoyable movie. There were moments where it kind of lagged. The chemistry between some of the characters isn't quite there but somewhat acceptable. The action scenes are done quite well. The lore and the world building for this movie was really well done. I have to give this movie a 7 out of 10. I still remember this as the best the franchise had to offer.