There's a nice little 90-minute B movie trapped inside the 143 minutes of "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," a movie that charms the audience and then outstays its welcome. Although the ending leaves open the possibility of a sequel, the movie feels like it already includes the sequel; maybe that explains the double-barreled title. It's a good thing that Geoffrey Rush and Johnny Depp are on hand to jack up the acting department. Their characters, two world-class goofballs, keep us interested even during entirely pointless swordfights.See if you can follow me here. Capt. Jack Sparrow (Depp) has a deep hatred for Capt. Barbossa (Rush), who led a mutiny aboard Sparrow's pirate ship, the Black Pearl, and left Capt. Jack stranded on a deserted island. Barbossa and his crew then ran afoul of an ancient curse that turned them into the Undead. By day they look like normal if dissolute humans, but by the light of the moon, they're revealed as skeletal cadavers. Now here's the important part: Because they're already dead, they cannot be killed.
Excuse me for supplying logic where it is manifestly not wanted, but doesn't that mean there's no point in fighting them? There's a violent battle at one point between the Black Pearl crew and sailors of the Royal Navy, and unless I am mistaken the sailors would all eventually have to be dead because the skeletons could just keep on fighting forever, until they won. The only reason I bring this up is that the battle scenes actually feel as if they go on forever. It's fun at first to see a pirate swordfight, but eventually it gets to the point where the sword-clashing, yardarm-swinging and timber-shivering get repetitious. I also lost count of how many times Jack Sparrow is the helpless captive of both the British and the pirates, and escapes from the chains/brig/noose/island.And yet the movie made me grin at times, and savor the daffy plot, and enjoy the way Depp and Rush fearlessly provide performances that seem nourished by deep wells of nuttiness. Depp in particular seems to be channeling a drunken drag queen, with his eyeliner and the way he minces ashore and slurs his dialogue ever so insouciantly.
Don't mistake me: This is not a criticism, but admiration for his work. It can be said that his performance is original in its every atom. There has never been a pirate, or for that matter a human being, like this in any other movie. There's some talk about how he got too much sun while he was stranded on that island, but his behavior shows a lifetime of rehearsal. He is a peacock in full display.Consider how boring it would have been if Depp had played the role straight, as an Errol Flynn or Douglas Fairbanks (Sr. or Jr.) might have. To take this material seriously would make it unbearable. Capt. Sparrow's behavior is so rococo that other members of the cast actually comment on it. And yet because it is consistent and because you can never catch Depp making fun of the character, it rises to a kind of cockamamie sincerity.Geoffrey Rush is relatively subdued--but only by contrast. His Barbossa, whose teeth alone would intimidate a congregation of dentists, brings gnashing to an art form.
Only the film's PG-13 rating prevents him from doing unthinkable things to the heroine, Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), whose blood, it is thought, can free the captain and his crew from the Curse of the Black Pearl.Elizabeth is the daughter of Weatherby Swann, the governor (Jonathan Pryce) of Port Royal, a British base in the Caribbean, and seems destined to marry Cmdr. Norrington (Jack Davenport), a fate which we intuit would lead to a lifetime of conversations about his constipation.She truly loves the handsome young swordsmith Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), whom she met when they were both children, after spotting him adrift on a raft with a golden pirate medallion around his neck, which turns out to hold the key to the curse. Jack Sparrow takes a fatherly interest in young Turner, especially when he discovers who his father was ... and that is quite enough of the plot.Bloom is well cast in a severely limited role as the heroic straight-arrow. He has the classic profile of a silent-film star.
Knightley you will recall as the best friend of the heroine in "Bend It Like Beckham," where she had a sparkle altogether lacking here.Truth be told, she doesn't generate enough fire to explain why these swashbucklers would risk their lives for her, and in closeup, seems composed when she should smolder. Parminder K. Nagra, the star of "Beckham," might have been a more spirited choice."Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" is "based on" the theme park ride at Disney World, which I have taken many times. It is also inspired (as the ride no doubt was) by the rich tradition of pirate movies, and excels in such departments as buried treasure, pirates' caves, pet parrots and walking the plank, although there is a shortage of eye patches and hooks.The author Dave Eggers reportedly plans to open a Pirates' Store, complete with planks measured and made to order, and "The Curse of the Black Pearl" plays like his daydreams.Share your LEGO creations, free! | Welcome to the world's greatest LEGO fan community!
Here's how it works: Anybody can ask a question The best answers are voted up and rise to the top In Pirates of the Caribbean, whoever has the Aztec gold gets cursed. But Elizabeth had the gold coin with her which Bootstrap gave to his son Will before he was tied to a cannon and dropped to the ocean floor. Barbossa states that they were cursed because of Aztec gold. Also in the fight between Jack and Barbossa, Jack takes a gold coin and he was also cursed. Why didn't Elizabeth get affected? Or was she also cursed and nobody noticed? Elizabeth didn't get cursed because she didn't take the coin from its original chest, the coin got passed on to Will Turner and then Elizabeth, Bill Turner was the one that took that same coin from the chest and he got cursed. Quote from conversation between Barbossa and Elizabeth about the curse:So the heathen gods placed upon the gold...a terrible curse. mortal that removes but a single piece from that stone chest shall
be punished for eternity." The crew that stole the gold from the original chest got cursed, but before they realized that, they already spent their aztec gold on different places. If the curse was spread just by touching the gold there would be a lot more undead people, including Elizabeth and Will, which is not the case. Confusion might be when Jack took the gold coin from the original stone chest later on and gotten cursed for a short period until he returned it back. For the same reason that young Will Turner wasn't cursed after wearing the medallion. After young Will is rescued in the beginning of the first movie, young Elizabeth finds the medallion on young Will, and not wanting him arrested and hung as a pirate, takes it and begins wearing it herself. Neither of them were cursed by that act. It wasn't the simple act of holding, or being given a piece of eight from the cursed treasure. It was the personal choice of stealing one. Bootstrap Bill takes a coin (with greed, as treasure) and is cursed.
Bootstrap gives the coin to his son (who receives it as a gift without envy or greed), who is not cursed. Elizabeth takes the coin with the good intention of saving Will (not with envy or greed), and is not cursed. Captain Jack Sparrow later takes a coin off the pile (with the bad intention of killing Barbossa) and is cursed. Finally Jack (the monkey) steals a doubloon (with greed, as treasure) and is cursed. Would that I could. He produces the medallion, lets it dangle from his fingers. Do you not know what this is, It's a pirate medallion. It's a piece of the treasure of Isla de Elizabeth gives an infinitesimal shrug, intrigued despite Ah, so you don't know as much as youBack when Cortes was cutting a great bloody swath through the New World, a high priest gave. gold they had, with one condition: that he spare the people's lives. Cortes being Cortes, he didn't. He'd've made a great pirate, that one. Barbossa stands, moves to a shelf.
Puts a key to a medium- sized polished wooden box -- the Captain's chest. So the priest, with his dying breath, called on the power of the blood of his people, and put on the gold a curse. anyone took so much as a single piece, as he was compelled by greed, by greed he would be consumed. Inside the chest are charts, some gold, a sextant -- and a few pages of a Mayan CODEX, pieces of tree bark inscribedBarbossa removes them carefully, sets them on the table. Within a day of leaving port for Spain, the treasure ship carrying the gold ... aground, every man aboard dead, saveHe survived long enough to hide Over time, the dark magic of the curse seeped into the place, making it aAn island of death. As you can read: ...put on the gold a curse. If anyone took so much as a single piece, as he was compelled by greed, by greed he would be consumed. The curse was not on the chest, but the gold. And for the curse to be "activated" the gold doubloon needed to be taken, with greed as the motive.