9/June/2022. Watched.
My rating: 8/10.
The infamous, or famous (I can't quite make up my mind about it), trial of Johnny Depp & Amber Heard marks a shift in our zeitgeist as we're forced to reexamine our perception of women and finally treat them as an equal; equal in their capacity to be evil as well, which was somewhat absent from the past decade. And the trial marked a shift in me personally too, as I realized I had never watched any of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. I'll let you decide which shift is greater.
I went in with high hopes because I had only ever heard great things about this franchise and being familiar with the character of Cpt. Jack Sparrow because of it's popularity in pop-culture made me that much more eager to watch it. And I must say that my hopes were met with some amount of satisfaction.
The plot and premise of the story promises a swashbuckling adventure of plundering pirates in the paradisaical seas of the Caribbean. Unlike my clumsy attempt at alliteration in the previous line, the structure of this film is very simple. And its that simplicity that works wonders for it. It allows for the 18th century world and the characters that inhabit it to take the centre stage.
It has everything you'd expect from a movie about pirates during the golden age of piracy. Ships with sails full of glory flying the Jolly Roger, cutlass wielding colourful characters who carry a parrot on their shoulder or wear a fake eye, an antagonist which literally goes "Arrgh!"...
But where it subverts expectations is when it decides to focus on the character of Sparrow who comes off as a bumbling drunk with a bellyful of cheap rum and cheaper manners. He is not any Tom, Dick and Sindbad that only does heroic things and is a goody two shoes. Instead, he wears a facade of incompetency and comes off as a low life to throw his enemies off guard. Its this characteristic that lends the character to humorous antics and amiability.
The animated performance of Depp would've completely stuck out if the rest of the cast had taken themselves too seriously. Geoffrey Bush, Jonathan Pryce and Jack Davenport were clearly having a lot of fun with their roles. At least it would seem that way. And Keira Knightley had among the best performances in the whole movie, which made her character so much more likable than it would've been on the page.
The VFX in this are also incredible, from the sparks of meeting swords to entire ships and fleet of skeletons, it all looks top notch. There's a really fun shot in which two characters are sword fighting and walking in and out of shafts of moonlight, turning into skeletons and back to human forms as they do. My only qualm with the way the film looks would be with the set designs, which makes me realize at all times that its a movie set on which it is being shot. It does give it a humble charm to an extent though, but it did pull me out of the world a bit. Another thing which I absolutely loved in this were the costumes, especially that of Jack Sparrow and Keira Knightley (even though it slanders corsets). Keira Knightley's costume at the climax looks so good.
I'm eager to watch the sequels and I think they would fix the set design issues in it. I'm also looking forward to Bill Nighy's Davy Jones even though I have heard that the sequels aren't as good as the original.
The reason why I liked this film so much is perhaps that I love Assassin's Creed: Black Flag which is essentially the game adaptation of this 2003 movie. I just remembered that in one scene it hinted at slavery (in the scene where the dock-keeper walks around with a little black boy), which is quite admirable considering its a big budget Disney movie.
This is the third film I have watched by Gore Verbinski, the other two being 2011's Rango - which I adored when I watched it a long, long time ago - and the second one being 2002's The Ring which had bored me out of my mind. This experience rests firmly in the middle.
I think I will enjoy the game, Sea of Thieves (2018).
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