The
movie
There is, indeed, something called "Too much of a good thing."
And if ever a movie deserved that label, it's Pirates of the
Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
The "good thing" aspects come readily to mind. First of
all, we have pirates. I don't know about you, but in my mind, any
movie that features pirate adventures (especially involving
swordfights) is a movie with lots of potential for entertaining
mayhem. Then we've got an excellent cast: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom,
Geoffrey Rush, Jonathan Pryce, Keira Knightley, and a handful of
other solid supporting players. Add in a quite imaginative plot with
an interesting twist on the "ghost ship" legend, and finish
up with lavish and often quite spectacular special effects, and we're
looking good.
And in fact, those good elements are what make Pirates of the
Caribbean watchable. But the film as it stands is... well, too
much of all those good things. It's like when you go to a buffet and
are determined to get more than your money's worth: the first
plateful (or two) of food tastes great and is satisfying, but after
that third helping, you just feel bloated and can't bear the sight of
another piece of pie... no matter how much you enjoyed it the first
time.
That's how it goes with Pirates of the Caribbean. It would
have made a solid, entertaining 90-minute film, with a nice brisk
pace and no saggy parts. But that's not what we get, alas. No, what
we get is a 90-minute movie with a full hour of unnecessary bloat
tacked on. It's almost twice as long as it needs to be, and frankly
it really shows. The film moves along at a reasonable pace with
interesting development of the plot, up to about the hour mark, and
at about an hour-and-a-half it feels like it has reached a reasonable
stopping point in the story... but it's far from the end. I found
myself checking the time and wondering "How on earth are they
going to keep this going another whole hour?" Well, they keep it
going by stringing together more of the same elements that made the
first 90 minutes fun: more confrontations and escapes by Captain Jack
Sparrow, more sea battles, more sword fights. Only this time, it all
feels like it's stretched thin; it's all too clear that the material
is being made to work overtime. On top of that, the last twenty
minutes or so is completely pointless: instead of stopping at a high
point in this action-adventure film, the filmmakers decide to let the
action subside (giving me another reason to check my watch) and drag
out the trappings of a sentimental ending.
Pirates of the Caribbean is the kind of movie that you have to
turn off your critical faculties to enjoy in the first place: there
are numerous examples of ridiculously implausible actions and
occurrences, not to mention paper-thin characterizations. Some flaws
clearly fall into the category of "This makes no sense, but it
looks cool, so we'll do it anyway," and others are examples of
the filmmakers not really bothering to pay attention to consistency
or realism. And as long as the movie is doing its job of fully
entertaining us and treating us to swashbuckling fun, it's not too
hard to overlook the little flaws... but it gets harder to do that as
the film drags on and the action wears thin.
Even leaving aside the fact that it's too long, Pirates of the
Caribbean would probably have been a better film if it had
focused more squarely on the adventures of Captain Jack Sparrow,
rather than shoehorning in the clunky, conventional romance between
Elizabeth and Will. The versatile Johnny Depp seems to be having a
great time in his role as a pirate, and his performance as the
slightly off-kilter captain puts a sparkle in just about every scene
that he's in. There are also some hints that the film would have
worked better as a more straightforward adventure, sans romantic
quest to save the beloved (twice): the casually mentioned backstory
of Sparrow and the Black Pearl is more interesting than the entire
second half of the actual film, and even the comedic elements have a
rather Shakespearian feel, with the two oddball pirates taking on the
role of "clowns" in the story. All in all, it's a movie
that seems to balance (rather uncomfortably) between being a
conventional "Hollywood summer blockbuster" and being an
interesting and original movie; the scale tips more toward the bland
blockbuster side in the end, but there are enough memorable moments
that it's probably worth watching.
The
DVD
The three-disc special edition of Pirates of the Caribbean: The
Curse of the Black Pearl is a bit of an odd package. It consists
of the already released 2-disc Collector's Edition, packaged along
with a separate third DVD. This DVD, labeled "The Lost Disc,"
is packaged in its own ultra-slim cardboard case.
Video
Whatever flaws Pirates of the Caribbean may have as a film, it
does look and sound great. The film appears on DVD in its original
2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio, and has been anamorphically enhanced.
The image is colorful or dark and gloomy according to the dictates of
the scene, and in either case both colors and shadows are handled
very well. The print is clean and clear, with no flaws or noise
appearing at all. The only real flaw in the otherwise outstanding
transfer is the presence of a moderate amount of edge enhancement. In
many scenes it's not particularly evident, but in others it's quite
visible. All in all, though, this transfer looks great.
Audio
The sound design for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the
Black Pearl is outstanding, with a great DTS track as well as a
solid Dolby 5.1 option. The DTS offers a superbly immersive audio
environment, with excellent use of directional effects laid on top of
a crisp, clear, and rich overall soundtrack. The musical score gives
a solid musical background to the film as well, and is balanced
nicely with the other elements of the track.
Extras
There are two parts to the special features for this release. The
two-disc main DVD is exactly the same as the separate Collector's
Edition release, while the third, separately packaged disc has new
material for this release.
Disc
1
Apart from the film itself, Disc 1 also contains the audio commentary
tracks. The first of two full-length commentaries is with director
Gore Verbinski and actor Johnny Depp; we also get a full-length
commentary with writers Stuart Beattie, Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio,
and Jay Wolpert. Two scene-specific commentaries are included as
well: a 17-scene commentary with Keira Knightley and Jack Davenport,
and an 11-scene commentary with Jerry Bruckheimer. In both cases, you
can select a specific scene or use the "play all" feature.
For viewers who really loved the film, there's certainly a lot of
interesting material here, but it's a bit much if you just thought
the film was mildly entertaining.
Disc
2
The bulk of the special features appear on Disc 2. First on the menu
is the best feature: a 38-minute "making of" featurette
called "An Epic at Sea." It takes a look at the whole
process of making the film and provides some very interesting looks
behind the scenes. It's a shame that more of the smaller featurettes
weren't woven into this piece to create a longer, more cohesive
documentary.
Next is a 20-minute section of "Fly on the Wall" scenes,
which are just (literally) peeks behind the scenes for five different
scenes in the film. Since there's no commentary or narration, this
section is really not very interesting. More behind-the-scenes
material appears in the three "Diaries" in the next
section. The four-minute photo diary of producer Jerry Bruckheimer
isn't particularly interesting, but the 9-minute video diary kept by
one of the supporting actors is more informative, as is the 11-minute
"diary of a ship" that takes a look at the role of the real
ship used as the full-sized Interceptor.
For viewers who are interested in learning more about pirates in
general, the "Below Deck" section offers some solid
material, though in a rather annoying user interface. The default
option is to click around the picture of a ship to select little
snippets of factual information about pirates, but a better choice is
to select "Scene Index." This displays all the various
segments in order and allows you to watch them without fooling around
with silly clicking games. Unfortunately, there's no "play all"
feature, though.
The 19-minute section of deleted/extended scenes will be of interest
to some viewers (but not me! The movie was plenty long enough as
is!), as will the "Moonlight Serenade scene progression," a
6-minute segment that shows how the special effects for that scene
were done.
For miscellaneous features, we also get a 3-minute blooper reel, an
image gallery, and an 18-minute segment of "Walt Disney's
Wonderful World of Color" focusing on the then-new "Pirates
of the Caribbean" Disneyland ride.
Disc
3
The third disc (labeled "The Lost Disc") doesn't really add
a whole lot to the special features. There are no major documentaries
here, just an assortment of short featurettes on various aspects of
the film. We start out with conversations with the actors. "Becoming
Captain Jack" (8 min.) and "Becoming Barbossa" (5
minutes) are interviews with Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush in which
they discuss their thoughts on their roles and the film; "The
Monkey's Name Is Jack" (4 minutes) introduces us to the capuchin
monkey who played Jack, as well as her trainer, who explains some of
the challenges involved in working with a monkey actor.
The third disc also includes various short featurettes on other
aspects of the making of the film. "Thar She Blows!" is a
short (6-minute) look at the making of (and eventual destruction of)
the 1/4 model of the Interceptor. "Pirates Around the
World" (4 minutes) gives examples of a scene dubbed into several
different languages, while three "Fly on the Wall" segments
(totaling about 15 minutes) literally look behind the scenes during
the "dock," "tavern," and "plank"
scenes. This isn't actually all that interesting, since there's no
narration to describe what's happening; we just get to see a glimpse
of the filmmaking. An animatic sequence for the "Sneak Attack"
is also included, running about four minutes.
Lastly, the third disc has two reasonably interesting segments that
touch on the inspiration of the film: namely, the Disneyland ride
"The Pirates of the Caribbean." First, a seven-minute piece
called "The Spirit of the Ride" has the director and
various other cast and crew discussing how they drew on the amusement
park ride for ideas and general atmosphere for the film; the
14-minute mini-documentary "Dead Men Tell No Tales" (also
available in the DVD-ROM content in the two-disc edition) gives a
history of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride, complete
with lots of behind-the-scenes looks at the animatronic pirates and
nostalgia-inducing footage from the ride itself.
Final
thoughts
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl seems
like a worthwhile adventure story that got away from its creators. If
you're willing to turn off your critical faculties and put up with a
generous amount of story bloat, there's the skeleton of a fun story
hidden underneath the fat. If you haven't seen it already, I'd
consider this film to be a good choice as a rental: it lacks the
rewatchability to make it worth a purchase, but it's worth seeking
out at your local rental store if you're in the mood for a fluffy
pirate adventure film.
If you loved the film in the theaters and know that you want to own
it, the question is "which edition?" Considering that the
2-disc Collector's Edition and the 3-disc Special Edition retail for
the same price, it makes sense to pick up the 3-disc edition, since
it's exactly the same as the 2-disc CE plus the extra disc of special
features. However, if you already own the 2-disc CE, I wouldn't
recommend "upgrading" to the 3-disc set. The additional
extras aren't bad, but they're minor stuff compared to what's already
on the 2-disc set, and I certainly don't think they're worth a
re-purchase.
Buy: