Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl

It was the balmy summer of 2003. Having survived my first year of college, I was back at home and working my second (and final) part-time season at Disneyland. A big to-do was happening on June 28th, and even the lowliest store cast members were being prepped for the coming of the Hollywood elite as Disney’s would-be blockbuster, Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl, was to premiere inside the park. We were instructed to treat any famous celebrities that might visit our gift shop during the day just like any other guest, and reminded not to stare or ask for autographs. Giant bleachers had been set up around the Rivers of America, and an equally huge movie screen erected across the water, on Tom Sawyer Island. As the day approached, Main Street USA was decked out with big flood-lights, crowd barriers and a street-wide red carpet. Most of the west side of the park (including Frontierland and New Orleans Square, where I was working that day) closed up in the early afternoon, and the rest of the park by 8pm. Guests were welcomed over at California Adventure (in its second lackluster year) across the way, which would be open through midnight.

A splashy movie premiere inside Disneyland? Seemed like a big hassle to me - especially considering the movie in question was based on a beloved 36-year old ride about pirates. Hadn’t Disney just tried (and failed) to make an attraction into a movie last year, with 2002’s The Country Bears? And what was with the long subtitle? Were they already anticipating sequels?


Mr. Depp's Wild Ride

If Disney was going to adapt one of their theme park attractions into a movie, Pirates of the Caribbean was probably their best bet (which makes the previous year's attempt to adapt The Country Bear Jamboree all the more bewildering.) Already rooted in the popular image of piracy (as seen in golden-age Hollywood serials) rather than straight historical facts, the 1967 ride has a mysterious and timeless quality that lends itself well to the silver screen. Since Pirates itself is (or at least was, before changes came a few years later) an “experience” attraction rather than one that tells a specific story, a filmed adaptation has a lot of freedom to extrapolate. Hence the 2003 film is littered with references to the original attraction, but not beholden to fit all of its incidents into a narrative. We therefore get scenes set within treasure-littered caverns, a pirate ship bombarding a seaside fortress, and the famous scene of imprisoned buccaneers attempting to snatch a set of keys away from a guard dog (a moment which should make any Disney fan worth their salt grin like an idiot.)


Ahoy dog! Would ye be wantin' some Kibbles n' Bits?

However, the film’s Port Royale setting is assuredly not the same besieged Spanish port from the ride - hence the lack of culturally questionable accents from the townspeople ("Be brave, Carlos - don' be cheeeken!"). The villainous pirates led by Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) are focused on a specific mission to lift their curse, unlike the rowdy band of buccaneers from the ride who are clearly just out for a good time. Apparently there were to be a few more Disneyland references in the film (such as a plunge over a waterfall to enter the treasure-filled caverns,) but Michael Eisner requested that they be scaled back, after the Country Bears debacle gave him some cause for concern.


FastPass distribution has closed for the day.

What also helps the movie feel similar to its parent attraction is the blending of horror and humor. It would’ve been easy enough to produce a straightforward adventure film that hearkens back to the swashbuckling serials of old; credit must go to screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio (as well as director Gore Verbinski, who re-staged a few scenes and encouraged his actors to ad lib on occasion) for taking a chance with something a bit more eccentric. The “cursed gold” plot line, which causes the pirate crew to become animated corpses, is a nifty way of bringing the ride’s “dead men tell no tales” iconography to the screen - while finally giving a possible explanation as to how that pirate skeleton has managed to steer a ship through a hurricane for so many years.

Do ye' know how much these be goin' for on ebay, matey?

And when I bring up humor, I don’t necessarily refer to the obvious physical comedy found in many of the film's action sequences (or the endless “false eye” gags from Mackenzie Crook's character,) but to the subtle humor injected into the story. Moments like Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) accidentally breaking a wall sconce in the governor’s mansion and his attempt to discreetly hide it, or Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) struggling uselessly to remove a fake sword from a coat-of-arms while pirates storm her house; light touches that inject brevity to the high-concept ghost story.


I wanna rock!!

Also quite funny (though by no means subtle) is Johnny Depp as scallywag Captain Jack Sparrow; beyond question it’s his performance that really makes the film memorable. While everyone in the cast is giving their all and clearly having a good time (and yes, Bloom and Knightley are quite a milquetoast pair, but they’re well-suited to their respective characters,) they're also acting comfortably within the confines of a traditional action-adventure film. Depp, on the other hand, went in a completely different direction, deciding that to be a pirate was akin to being a perpetually fried rock star. Riffing an impression of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards (with perhaps a little inspiration from Peter Ustinov's Blackbeard,) Depp had Disney executives panicking that their lead actor had gone off the deep end and would ruin their expensive summer movie.

I kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot...

On the contrary, Depp’s off-kilter characterization seemed to capture the essence of what “a pirate’s life” was all about. While his Captain Jack can be at turns wacky or dangerous, his drunken (yet subtly impassioned) confession to Elizabeth (that captaining his own ship means that he is truly free) most closely captures the romantic idea of piracy more than all the singing of "pillage, plunder, rifle and loot" could. More scrappy than suave, more shiftless than sure, and more hedonistic than heroic, Depp’s Captain Jack quickly captured the imaginations of filmgoers, almost instantly becoming one of the great characters of modern cinema. I never doubted that without Depp’s performance Curse Of The Black Pearl, while still an enjoyable adventure film, would never have been the great success it was.


Find a few limes and I'll rustle us up some Mai Tai's, love...

Even taking the scene-stealing Jack Sparrow into account, however, the movie is less than perfect. While far from the longest blockbuster that Hollywood has dragged out in the last fifteen years (and certainly not within its own franchise,) several sequences go on longer than necessary. In fact, I can’t think of a single set piece in this movie that couldn’t have been trimmed by several minutes. An early sword fight between Will and Jack, which starts as a relatively simple duel set within a blacksmith shop, escalates to a fight atop a swaying cart, and even sees our heroes catapulting into the shop’s rafters.

Finish him!

Later in the film, our heroes pursue the villainous Barbossa and his crew to the mysterious Isla de Muerta, where they rescue Elizabeth and flee in a stolen British ship. Halfway back to safety, the Black Pearl catches up with them, and after a lengthy (though very exciting) cannon battle, they proceed to capture Will and take him back to the same island again - where he’ll later be rescued. Besides providing an opportunity for said sea battle, was so much back-and-forth really necessary? Surely some story editing could’ve condensed everything and still provided room for high-seas adventure.

Cannon to the right of them! Cannon to the left of them! Volley'd and thunder'd!!

The worst offender, however, is the silly sequence in which Elizabeth encounters the cursed pirate crew in the moonlight, in all their CG-skeletal glory. Where a simple reveal shot of the animated corpses would’ve sufficed, we instead get to see each crew member performing their topside duties while Elizabeth is shoved, swung, and tossed through the air (again, what’s with the acrobatics?), screaming all the way. Captain Barbossa then caps off her traumatic experience by emphasizing that the crew is indeed dead, downing a bottle of wine which pours down his exposed ribcage (just moments ago he insisted that food and drink provide them no nourishment, so he’s clearly just showing off.) This isn’t the longest sequence in the film, but it feels like the most unnecessary.

We can only afford a skeleton crew. Ba-dum-bum.

Having heard little about the film before it was released, I wasn’t interested in seeing it - I was really looking forward to Freddy Vs. Jason later that summer (“Place your bets!!”) Nevertheless, on a lazy weekday off from Disney a few weeks after the gala premier, I went by the Whittier Village Cinema and decided the film was worth a matinee ticket. While Curse Of The Black Pearl didn’t exactly blow me away, I did end up having a really fun experience at the movies - which is what summer entertainment is all about, after all. Obviously, I wasn’t the only one who enjoyed it; the film’s massive success seemed to take everyone by surprise. Thanks to Depp’s iconic performance, as well as a general public that had seemingly been starved for all things buccaneer-related (just see the influx in pirate-related minutiae that’s exploded into pop culture since then,) Disney and producer Jerry Bruckheimer suddenly found themselves with a very hot commodity on their hands.

It wouldn’t take long for them to take advantage.


Thar be sequels ahead, savvy?

PS: I never did encounter any celebrities on the day of the premiere. They must’ve all been riding Space Mountain...