Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl: On-This-Day Thursday
Every Thursday, an older film released on this opening weekend years ago will be reviewed. They can be classics, or simply popular films that happened to be released to the world on the same date.
For July 9th, we are going to have a look at Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
Flash back to 2003, and Pirates of the Caribbean was a young colt with a spring in its step; the franchise is beyond a dead horse that has been begged to keep going, despite being decomposed to the point of bare bones. I liken The Curse of the Black Pearl to Raiders of the Lost Ark (only the former was already bold enough in its own success, and boasted its franchise within the title well before a series even began). Both films feature a lone protagonist that eventually bands with others in search of a specific coveted item. We also see other shenanigans by said protagonists. Instead of a professor adventurer, Pirates has an inept captain named Jack Sparrow, who we can all kind of identify with. That’s all that was needed. Pirates of the Caribbean was the new Indiana Jones: a revival of a tired style of storytelling with new life and tons of respect for the lore. It was refreshing for a new generation, and earnest for older viewers.
Ignoring the series that came after it (all mediocre or worse, by the way), The Curse of the Black Pearl is a harmless film that has so much modern day animosity attached to it, because of the never ending brewing of franchise saturation to the point of agony. Stay in 2003 mentally. This was the next big thing. Disney’s animated films were beginning to drop (outside of the occasional film like Lilo & Stitch), and their live action department was beyond garbage for a number of years. This was the next wave of Disney (outside of Pixar, of course). Comic book films had just begun to really take shape with Spider-Man. This was the Disney answer: an action adventure epic of treasure hunting, undead pirates, and more. These were all new faces, too, between rising stars Orlando Bloom (The Lord of the Rings) and Keira Knightly (Bend it like Beckham) and acclaimed actors breaking into the mainstream for good (Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush). Johnny Depp leapt between indie films, weirder mainstream films, or the hearth rob role before being cemented into the limelight forever as Jack Sparrow. He was nominated for an Academy Award for this. As insane as that seems now, Pirates was a big deal when released. It’s still a little strange, let’s be honest.
Jack Sparrow staring off into the horizon.
At the end of the day, The Curse of the Black Pearl is just an adventure film full of antics, one-liners, and visual splendour. It’s easy to forget how invasive the film was, before the series overstayed its welcome. Is Black Pearl a little overlong? Sure. Maybe that was a harbinger of a franchise that wouldn’t know when to quit (in film or series form). It’s also not unlike the countless blockbusters before and after it, so it’s not exactly an alien problem only attributed to Jack Sparrow and company. What Black Pearl has is charm, and the rest of the series confuses money being spent as magic (although even the worst Pirates films are impeccably built, physically and digitally). It may be difficult to distance this one film from everything that came after it (cinematically and pop-culturally), but doing so will be the key to remembering that Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was — at one point — a sign of new things to come for blockbusters. Unfortunately, the truth was much more mundane and headache inducing, but the glimpse of something better is what rendered Black Pearl such an endearing, captivating watch back in 2003.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.