My initial reaction to the release of Walt Disney’s Pirates
of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was "Are
you friggin’ kidding me?" A movie based on a ride of
a theme park? I thought only Six Flags did that, but even
so…it’s basing a ride on a movie, not the other way around!"
Anyway, I was mortified by the thought of this movie coming
out and with such heralded actors as Johnny Depp and Geoffey
Rush being associated with it.

However, as time went on, I slowly grew warmer to the idea.
I saw several previews for it and while I was expecting very
little, I became surprised with what I was seeing on the screen.
Then, I started to read reviews of it and the critics didn’t
pan it as much as I might have expected. The kicker for me
was seeing that the movie made over $70 million in its’ first
weekend at the box office (it has since grossed more than
$130 domestically). At that point, I knew this couldn’t be
some cheap knock off. It appeared to be a real action movie.

Turns out I was right…

The story begins with a flashback of sorts. While sailing
in the Caribbean Sea, an English Royal Navy (the movie appears
to take place in the mid-18^th century) boat picks
up a boy who was evidently knocked out and set on a large
piece of wood acting as a raft in order to hopefully get picked
up by another boat and saved from the treacherous water. The
English save the boy and he is left in the care of the Governor’s
(they lead on that he is the "ruler" of the English
island in the Caribbean where the story takes place) daughter,
Elizabeth Swann. She notices that that he is wearing what
appears to be a circular gold medallion with several symbols
on it suggesting he is of pirate dissent.

Flash forward eight years and the audience sees that Elizabeth
(now played by Keira Knightley) is all grown up and ready
to think about marriage while the boy, Will Turner, (played
by Orlando Bloom) was accepted by the citizens of the English
town and he has become an apprentice to the town’s (lush)
blacksmith/swordsmith. Also, it becomes well-established that
Elizabeth is expected to marry Norrington (Jack Davenport)
who is going to be made Commandant of the Royal Navy by Elizabeth’s
father very soon. However, the viewers also see that a "forbidden"
love exists between Will and Elizabeth.

Once this background is introduced and some plot points are
established, the audience is introduced to Johnny Depp’s pirate
character, Captain Jack Sparrow. Before I go any further,
to describe Captain Sparrow, I defer to one of my friends,
the "Rowdy Bull" Mark U. who had one of the best
character descriptions I have ever seen. He illustrated Depp’s
character by saying:

"It’s kind of like they told him to take the character
he played in From Hell who kept having the funny reactions
to the opium and asked him to think of how ("Saturday

Night Live’s") Lyle the Effeminate Heterosexual would
have played that part if the guy was a pirate."

I hadn’t seen the movie when he wrote that classic quote
for me, but as I watched Captain Sparrow, I thought more and
more about the quote and DAMN! The boy’s right on target!
Despite the connection to "SNL’s" Lyle, that didn’t
really take away from Depp’s performance at all. He was funny
and flamboyant, cool and cunning, but not so much that one
trait ruled over the other. Overall, the cast did a fine job
in capturing their characters.

It isn’t made terribly clear why Captain Sparrow chose this
particular island to come to, but it is made clear, he had
his eye on stealing himself a boat and as much stuff from
the island as possible. However, he ends up doing something
heroic as he saves Elizabeth from drowning as her tight corset
caused a lack of oxygen to get to her head. She passed out
and fell off a cliff (the same thing happened to me last week…).
Captain Sparrow ends up saving Elizabeth and for his trouble
ends up in a jail cell for other illegal activity.

However, bigger problems are about to be inflicted on this
particular island. The dreaded "Black Pearl" ship
full with pirates is on its way to the island in order to
plunder, pillage, pilfer, and perpetrate whatever kind of
deeds they want. Normally, for this crew, this is just a "run
of the mill" island destruction. But, two of the pirates
get to Elizabeth and notice she is wearing the gold medallion
that was on Will’s neck when she found him eight years earlier.

That becomes significant because years earlier, a curse had
been cast on the crew of the "Black Pearl" basically
stating that as soon as the moon’s light shone bright, the
members of the crew would turn into rotting cadavers. The
only way to break the curse is to acquire all 882 gold medallions
that were part of a chest Cortez found on his original journey.
The crew had 881, they just needed the last coin and "the
blood of ‘Bootstrap Bill Turner" to lift the curse and
allow the crew to become normal humans again. Since ole’ Bootstrap
was dead, they needed it from his offspring and Elizabeth
told the captain of the "Black Pearl," Barbossa
(Geoffrey Rush) that it was her blood they wanted.

In the mean time, Will Turner has broken Captain Sparrow
out of jail and they steal one of the Royal Navy’s ships and
are off to confront Barbossa, albeit for much different reasons.
Turner is more interested in saving Elizabeth from certain
death, while Captain Sparrow is seeking revenge for being
exiled to a remote island when he was supposed to be the captain
of the "Black Pearl." When it is discovered Elizabeth
isn’t the offspring, it is actually another person (I won’t
say who it is, but will assume you’ve figured it out by now…),
he becomes the target of the "Black Pearl’s" crew.

That is one of the great aspects of this movie. While my
confusing description doesn’t do the film justice, there are
several significant storylines that are developed enough to
make the viewer care about each one.

– Captain Sparrow has a hatred for Barbossa and wants his
ship back. Barbossa would love to kill Sparrow once and for
all…

– Being a pirate, Captain Sparrow doesn’t care about the
real offspring of Bootstrap Bill, he wants to use that person
as leverage. So, his feelings are self-motivated.

– Once Barbossa figures out who the real offspring of Bootstrap
is, he immediately is interested in capturing him.

– Will Turner and Elizabeth are in love and are constantly
acting heroically and with reckless abandon in order to save
each other.

– The Royal Navy is out to save Elizabeth and destroy the
ship or the people that destroyed their island paradise while
also bringing Captain Sparrow to justice for his wrong-doings
as well.

There is definitely the aspect of good (Royal Navy) vs. bad
(pirates) in full-force. However, with the appearance of a
character like Captain Sparrow, viewers are constantly treated
to a story without a predictable direction. Is he the protagonist?
Is he the antagonist? That’s the beauty of it; he isn’t either
really. He is just out for himself, like the movie portrays
all pirates to be. The screenwriters, Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio
and Jay Wolpert, didn’t create the standard good man vs. pirates
story, there was more to it than that and it became an engaging
story worth following to the end, even if that last few minutes
were a bit hokey for their own good.

In addition to having a good story, pretty good direction
from Gore Verbinski (The Mexican), good acting performances
from all the main characters, and a Jerry Bruckheimer produced
film without too many over-the-top explosions to take away
from the story, one element that often gets overlooked is
the musical score. Now, I am not a musical expert, (after
all, I write about movies and television…) but I found the
score put together by Klaus Badelt (additional music in Gladiator,
Pearl Harbor) and his crew to be nothing short
of fabulous. The music was strong, dramatic, timely, and even
catchy; but not so over-the-top it drowned out the spoken
or moving dialogue (like with sword fights). It certainly
added to the "swashbuckling" aspect of the film
but not in a way that made it seem less real, just more dramatic.

Overall, if you are expecting a good, fun, action-adventure
comedy type movie, I certainly suggest that you head over
to your local multiplex and take it in. It certainly isn’t
realistic but it is a great story. I just wish they came up
with a better title for it!

Coogan’s Final Grade of the Film: B+
Coogan’s Final Grade of the Title: D-

FU/TU

• THANK YOU! to those who have votes for the Emmys
  for recognizing HBO and its outstanding programming with
  109 nominations for various awards (that’s 32 more than
  the next closest network). This with a stable of shows that
  is smaller than the rest of the networks. Their tagline
  is "It’s not TV, it’s HBO" and it makes sense.
  Without being too dramatic, it almost transcends normal
  television and even better, it causes the other nets to
  raise their game with the type of programming provided to
  customers.

• There is some scuttlebutt that Ray Romano is thinking
  of leaving his hit show "Everybody Loves Raymond"
  at the end of the 2003-2004 season despite making more than
  $1.5 million per episode. Sure, it’s easy to say FUCK
  YOU! to him for walking away from all that money. But,
  I really want to say FUCK YOU! to CBS for considering
  a spin-off series with everyone EXCEPT Ray Romano. It’s
  extraordinarily weird…Romano doesn’t have a hell of a
  lot charisma, he isn’t a terribly great actor, and he is
  really just part of a pretty good ensemble cast, but wouldn’t
  it be weird to have this show go on without him? I know
  I am not in favor of it.

• Last
  week, I said FUCK YOU! to the Bravo network
  and its corporate parent NBC for feeding the stereotypes
  of gay men with new show “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.”
  Well, they are shooting an even stronger FUCK YOU!
  back at me. Not only did that show get the highest ratings
  in the history of the Bravo network, NBC has decided to
  give the show a temporary home on Thursday nights after
  "Will and Grace." Oh, how fitting… I wonder if
  this will just be a passing fad…

• I thought long and hard about this and decided to say
  THANK YOU! to the producers of the film Taxi
  (a taxi driver teaming with a young cop to solve bank robberies)
  for including Jimmy Fallon in the cast. He is clearly just
  a more flamboyant Adam Sandler knock-off but I think he
  will be able to share the screen with the real star, Queen
  Latifah, while not necessarily hogging the screen. If they
  had equal billing, there could be problems. But at the same
  time, those younger people who may want to just see Jimmy
  in action won’t be disappointed with his role in the film.

• I’ve decided to say FUCK YOU! to NBC for heavily
  considering the Joey Tribbiani spin-off once "Friends"
  ends next spring. It appears it’s going to happen and focus
  primarily on Joey and his role on "Days of Our Lives."
  I guess that means he won’t end up with Rachel after all…Though,
  I do have to be careful… nothing is final yet…

• I am a little late to this one, but I definitely have
  to give a mammoth FUCK YOU! to whoever was responsible
  for putting that mess "Bash" on during MTV’s prime-time
  hours. It was supposed to model those Dean Martin celebrity
  roasts of the 1970s, but this couldn’t have been much worse.
  While "bashing" Carson Daly, the show was clunky,
  awkward, not even in the same area code as funny, and apparently
  the audience was filled with a bunch of celebrities who
  couldn’t take a joke. Every time the director cut to a celebrity
  being made fun of, he/she looked mortified as opposed to
  amused. This certainly wasn’t the way this was supposed
  to go…

• Question to ponder: Is Stan Lee doubling the Viagra dose
  these days? First, he produces TNN’s "Stripperella"
  and next on his plate is a creation with Playboy’s
  Hugh Hefner called "Hef’s Superbunnies." The New
  York Post describes the show as "a cross between ‘Charlie’s
  Angels’ and ‘The Superfriends.’" While it certainly
  is strange, I gotta say THANK YOU! to Stan Lee for
  keeping it real.

• Uh oh….National Football League (NFL) training camps start
  opening at the end of this week. I love the NFL and all,
  but how much analysis can be done at the end if July when
  the season is still five weeks away?!? I am saying FUCK
  YOU! to every major television and print sports outlet
  for making a huge deal out of this time of year.

• Normally, I wouldn’t include something like this in with
  the "normal news," but it is so funny, I had to.
  I got another news tidbit from the "Rowdy Bull"
  Mark U. It said:

Two things to say to this: First, FUCK YOU! to Mr.
Penn for allowing himself to start shit with a "little
person." Is that really necessary? Though our friend
from Reservoir Dogs is an idiot, I still must say
THANK YOU! for providing us with close to a perfect
score on the Bill Simmons Unintentional
Comedy Scale. Man, that must have been a site. A
well-established Hollywood actor and a "little person"
getting into a brawl at a bar. Thanks for the laughs…On
that note…

Have another great summer weekend!

- Coogan

To find out why Mr. Coogan thinks League of Extraordinary
Gentlemen would have been a better television show than a
movie, be sure to head on over to www.411mania.com/movies
for the lowdown. Also, don’t forget he gladly accepts emails
at coachcoogan@hotmail.com.

Last 5 posts by Steve Coogan

• Two New Fox Shows - March 25th, 2004
• Weekend TV Update: Where Will The Real World End Up? - March 18th, 2004
• Weekend TV Update - February 21st, 2004
• Did The Critics Torch Ashton Kutcher's Latest Offering? - January 29th, 2004
• Old, New, And Born-Again - January 15th, 2004