Main cast: Johnny Depp (Captain Jack Sparrow), Geoffrey Rush (Captain Hector Barbossa), Orlando Bloom (Will Turner), Keira Knightley (Elizabeth Swann), Jack Davenport (James Norrington), Kevin R McNally (Joshamee Gibbs), Zoe Saldana (Anamaria), and Jonathan Pryce (Governor Weatherby Swann)
Director: Gore Verbinski
After hearing all those rave reviews about Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, I finally purchase tickets to this movie and sit myself down with popcorn and all, confident that I will be blown away by completely. Twenty minutes later, as Marvin the Martian would say, “Where’s the earth shattering kaboom?”
While I did enjoy watching this one, I find myself underwhelmed by the whole movie, my biggest disappointment being that the main female character is another dingbat damsel in distress. Maybe it’s because of the hype or that I am just not an Orlando Bloom fangirl in anyway, but sheesh, I find myself wondering most of the time whether I can reproduce Johnny Depp’s mascara effect when I dress up for the Halloween party this year.
The story is about Will Turner, a man who is looking for his roots. He may be a blacksmith, but he’s also an excellent swordsman. At least, excellent enough to defeat Jack Sparrow, he who claims to be the infamous pirate, only now he happens to be missing a crew and a boat. Will loves the Governor’s daughter Elizabeth Swann, but Elizabeth holds a medallion that is passed on to her by Will when they were both kids and now immortal pirates led by Barbossa of the Black Pearl have invaded the seaside town and kidnapped Elizabeth! So now Will asks Jack to help him save Elizabeth! And there they go, Blandy and Mascara, on a tour of duty to save the girlie, swap the decks, and kick pirate asses.
Oh, Jack Sparrow is definitely the best character in this movie, Geoffrey Rush a close second, but put anyone next to the bland milquetoasts Mr Bloom and Ms Knightley and this person will come off as positively riveting screen presence. The plot is silly, of course, and it’s probably just as well as Elizabeth, her protests to the contrary notwithstanding, is as dumb as rocks. But in a time when women kick ass in this sort of movies, Elizabeth makes me roll up my eyes.
Flashy sword fights, computer generated skeletons, cannonball runs, it’s all here in Pirates Ate My Mascara. But at the end of the day, while this movie may be flashy in gimmicks and Orlando Bloom fangirls will watch this movie for the 10,000th time just to cheer and sigh as Will kisses Elizabeth, I’ll probably forget about this movie at the end of the week. That is, if I don’t come across yet another person telling me how this movie is the best romantic action fantasy movie ever. Obviously these people haven’t seen Ladyhawke or The Princess Bride.
