There is so much to love about this movie.
Oh, I love the opening!
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was surprisingly good. So of course they’re going to make a sequel and turn everything up to 11. More Johnny Depp (yay)! More love triangles (boo)! More supernatural beasties (awesome)! More mythology (sweet)!
On the plus side, there’s a lot to like. As mentioned Depp is still great. That’s probably the number one reasons these movies are as awesome as they are. He just nails the roll.
One of my favorites of the Disney animated classics. It’s a straight forward enough story that at least takes some pains to show the terrible way that European settlers treated Native Americans and shows that people are people and will often try to do the right thing, given a chance. The music is wonderful and the animation is really quite something that up even today.
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).
You know… I should really re-watch those movies.
As I expect is the case for many in roughly my age bracket, Harry Potter was a huge part of my life growing up. I think I got into it with the release of the 3rd or 4th book (can’t quite remember) and absolutely devoured each book after that the night it came out. I watched all of the movies a number of times. It was absolutely fascinating watching the characters in this other world basically growing up with me.
And now… 20 years later.