'Pirates' a fun romp

“Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl” is my favorite movie of the summer. I was looking forward to this movie since the very first previews and I must say I was not disappointed.

Since it’s been a while since we’ve had a good pirate movie, I found “Pirates of the Caribbean” very refreshing. This movie satisfies its audience not by it’s incredibly short running time, but by its comical value. Characters you will need to know are Capt. Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), Capt. Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and Elizabeth Swan (Keira Knightley).

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I think that there is a sufficient amount of action and dialogue and that all the actors did a good job. The pearl of “Pirates of the Caribbean,” though, is Johnny Depp. He plays a role that he usually doesn’t do and he succeeds triumphantly. His character has long black hair decorated with beads, gold and silver teeth and outrageous eye makeup. But not only does he look different, Depp takes his character into a place that I’ve never seen him go before. He is hilarious, absolutely comical and he steals away every scene he is in. His facial expressions alone make the movie.

Geoffrey Rush is wonderful, as always. He overplays the character just enough to make him memorable; any more from Rush and it would turn melodramatic. Bloom and Knightley are a very cute couple and they work well as a team. I enjoyed the way Knightley’s character was portrayed; usually the girl in pirate movies ends up as the damsel in distress, but when Elizabeth is in harm’s way she never makes you feel like she dumbly put herself there.

I thought that the swordfighting scenes in “Pirates of the Caribbean” were very exciting. I’ve always hidden a secret passion for fencing and I do enjoy a good sword fight. Although this one isn’t as good as the one in the “Princess Bride,” fans of that movie should know what I’m talking about, I think its definitely worthy of being on a list among the great fencing scenes.

The music in the movie is a great addition. Movies would be very bland without a soundtrack; I don’t think any of us would have found “Jaws” or “Psycho” to be as thrilling if the ominous music was not in the background. The music in this movie will excite you because it is what I refer to as hero music. As the end credits were rolling I seriously wanted to go take on a pirate crew myself.

Movies always have a way of repeating something already done. This isn’t always a bad thing, sometimes you just can’t help it, but after a while its nice to have something new. We’ve done romantic comedies, horror flicks and war, but we haven’t had many out in the sea action. Lately we have had two very good pirate movies: “Sinbad” and “Pirates of the Caribbean.”