And so it began.

This is just such a fun movie. Johnny Depp is absolutely the star of the show:

Mullroy: What’s your purpose in Port Royal, Mr. Smith?

Murtogg: Yeah, and no lies.

Jack Sparrow: Well, then, I confess, it is my intention to commandeer one of these ships, pick up a crew in Tortuga, raid, pillage, plunder and otherwise pilfer my weasely black guts out.

Murtogg: I said no lies.

Mullroy: I think he’s telling the truth.

Murtogg: If he were telling the truth, he wouldn’t have told us.

Jack Sparrow: Unless, of course, he knew you wouldn’t believe the truth even if he told it to you.

The sheer number of wonderfully quoteable lines he has:

Norrington: No additional shot nor powder, a compass that doesn’t point north,

[looks at Jack’s sword]

Norrington: And I half expected it to be made of wood. You are without doubt the worst pirate I’ve ever heard of.

Jack Sparrow: But you have heard of me.

And that’s on top of crazy pirate action (with a heart of gold buried somewhere deep in there), Geoffrey Rush’s spectacular portrayal of Barbossa, Bloom’s ’everyman with a mysterious history’, and Keira Knightley’s beginning to work against the sexism inherent in the age and region (although that gets better in the sequels).

The plot isn’t hugely complicated, but there are a few nice twists along the way; I love the idea of Depp being on one side / the other side / his own side, whichever strikes his fancy. The action scenes are a lot of fun, particularly when the skeleton pirates do skeleton pirate things–although they really do glance right over how terrifying some of that should be.

Overall, it’s a great movie and the start to an absolutely spectacular trilogy. One of my favorites thus far this year.