Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl Review

A good twelve years ago Disney threw us a curveball of a movie. No one seemed to know it was coming until the trailers hit the internet, and no one had seen a movie quite like it, so there were no preconceived notions or expectations to live up to. Not only did this movie wow us with a great deal of fun and creative action, it reignited interest in pirates and once again made them a romanticized notion that people surprisingly flocked to. I am, of course, referring to Pirates Of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003).

Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) arrives at Port Royal in the Caribbean without a ship or crew. His timing is inopportune, however, because later that evening the town is besieged by a pirate ship lead by Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush). The pirates kidnap the governor's daughter, Elizabeth (Keira Knightley), who's in possession of a valuable coin that is linked to a curse that has transformed the pirates into the undead. A gallant blacksmith, Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), in love with Elizabeth, tentatively allies with Sparrow in pursuit of the pirates.

As far as I can tell, this was the first time Disney had attempted to make a feature film based on one of their park rides. There have been other attempts which can best be described as bad. I suspect part of the appeal of Black Pearl was to see exactly how a notorious kids theme park ride transitioned into a movie. Really well, as it turns out.  There are lots of nods to the ride in the film, but none are so overt that they beat you over the head with them. For example, the ride's song "Yo Ho "A Pirate's Life for Me" was sung three times in the film; twice by Elizabeth and once by Jack in the final scene. The jail scene where prisoners try to tempt the Prison Dog who held the keys to their cells with a bone is taken directly from the ride. Even Jack's line, "the dog is never going to move" referenced the fact that the dog in the ride never actually moves. If you know what to watch for, you can see many actors behaving like the puppets do on the ride for a second or two on screen or in the background. This movie was so influential that it sparked interest in going on the Disneyland ride. Kids who grew up watching the movie ended up disappointed by a trip to Disneyland when they didn't see Jack Sparrow in the ride. Disney ultimately had to change the ride up a bit to resemble the movie due to its popularity. The ride now features Jack Sparrow, Barbossa, and Davey Jones (who appears in later films).

This was the first time in ages a legitimate sea epic had been filmed. Parts of the sea-faring scenes were actually filmed on location in the Caribbean oceans. Real sea ships were used in many of these scenes, while meticulously decorated barge "stunt doubles" with computer-generated imagery filling in the details were used in other scenes. This gave the movie a realistic feel to it that wouldn't have worked as well if it were all CGI visual effects. But what CGI effects were used were fantastic! Even twelve years after its release, it still looks good; the movie has aged very well.

Objectively, the story here isn't great. It's decent and fun, but isn't great. I truly don't think this movie would have done nearly as well with anyone else cast as Jack Sparrow. Johnny Depp was encouraged to adlib and improvise a lot in this movie, and he does. Depp's outstanding, unforgettable, and charismatic character often takes center stage and steals scenes he's in. He effortlessly shoves the cliché love plot out of the way and makes the film his own. Jack Sparrow is so charming, funny, and likable that you can't help but enjoy the movie as a whole. I'm not sure how the cast and crew were able to keep a straight face when Depp was hamming it up as the character he created. Even Jack Sparrow's catchphrase, "Savvy?" was improvised by Depp.

The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is a great movie. It's not perfect, but there truly is very little that can be said about this film in a negative light. It is clever, witty, and sharp. One of the true achievements, however, is that it isn't too witty and sharp; it knew its boundaries, unlike the sequels. The seriousness of the situations these characters were put in feel real, which caused us to care about what was happening to them. This movie became an instant cult classic and reignited film fans' love of pirate adventures. The fact that it had no expectation contrasts with its sequels, which is why it was probably so successful. The movies that came after this first one had their good and bad attributes, and even with a fifth installment coming out in 2017, I cannot for the life of me imagine it topping The Curse of the Black Pearl. In fact, I can't see any pirate film surpassing this landmark film for some time to come. This is absolutely worth owning a copy; I've got my own copy already comfortably resting on a shelf next to some of my other favorites. If you haven't seen this movie, you're missing out. If you have seen it, it's high time you saw it again.

If another theme park ride (Disney or otherwise) were made into a movie what would you like to see? Comment below and let me know!

The Imitation Game Review

When I reviewed Gangs of New York back in 2012, I asked readers what obscure bit of history they would like to see made into a movie. I said I'd love to see a biopic of Alan Turing. He was a pioneering scientist and mathematician who is considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. He was a remarkable historical figure whose life tragically ended early. I knew about some aspects of his life before The Imitation Game (2014) was released, but I didn't realize just how influential he had been and how many lives he saved during World War II. I'm delighted his life was depicted in film this way, and that it was an outstanding film besides.

During the winter of 1952, British authorities entered the home of mathematician, cryptanalyst and war hero Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) to investigate a reported burglary. They instead ended up arresting Turing himself on charges of 'gross indecency', an accusation that would lead to his devastating conviction for the criminal offense of homosexuality - little did officials know, they were actually incriminating the pioneer of modern-day computing. Under orders of Commander Denniston (Charles Dance), Turing had famously lead a motley group of scholars, linguists, chess champions and intelligence officers, including Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode), John Cairncross (Allen Leech), Peter Hilton (Matthew Beard), and Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley). Together, the team sets out to crack the so-called unbreakable codes of Germany's World War II Enigma machine's algorithm so that future coded messages could be deciphered. Under nail-biting pressure, these geniuses helped to shorten the war and, in turn, save thousands of lives.

The story spans Turing's unhappy teenage years, focuses on his wartime work, and his post-war decline. It was far more interesting than one would suppose it should be. The bulk of the story revolves around Britain's greatest minds in the World War II era in a secret military base scrambling to crack a code. That doesn't really lend itself to thrilling scenes. Yet this is by no means a dull story. There is a sense of urgency throughout the movie as they literally race against the clock, trying to solve the code before midnight when the code's key is reset and they have to start over from scratch. Each time they fail hundreds, even thousands, of lives of the allied forces are lost. On top of that, Turing isn't well liked thanks to his social awkwardness and obliviousness to normal social cues. Often he did not have the support of his colleagues, and was often under threat of being fired for wasting Government money on a gigantic thinking machine that didn't seem to do anything but use valuable resources. There is a lot of tension, lies and secrets, character development, excellent plot twists, and, unexpectedly, a fair number of laughs.

The acting was superb! Admittedly, I'm not the biggest Cumberbatch fan, but you can't deny how amazing his voice sounds. This is the first time I've seen him in a starring role and he nails it. Much of the movie's humor comes from Turing's obliviousness to social cues. His literal mindedness tended to drive people around him crazy, and Cumberbatch portrayed Turing's aloofness perfectly. There's a scene when Turing is taking Joan Clarke's advice to try to endear himself to his team. He buys them all apples, shuffles around their work area awkwardly distributing them, and proceeds to fail at telling them a very lame joke, and then leaving. Scenes like this are where Cumberbatch's acting skills are most impressive. Acting out a character who's trying to be funny, but isn't, and isn't even aware how bad he looks and clearly doesn't get the nuances of humor can't be easy to portray. Moments when Turing is torn between revealing secrets in the name of national security and keeping secrets in order to keep working in the interest of ending the war are also well acted.  Cumberbatch skillfully plays a character that is so oblivious to normal social cues that he doesn't always realize he's been invited to lunch. Within this awkward character, he shows us the inner conflict of a man who isn't sure when to keep valuable information quiet and the sense of uncertainty it causes him. Cumberbatch portrays this character of superior intelligence and social obliviousness brilliantly. Cumberbatch doesn't play Turing so much as he inhabits him; bravely and sympathetically, but without mediation.

I can't imagine how difficult it is to visually portray a historical setting in film on a large scale, but some movies depict these periods with such efficacy that we feel transported to another time for the duration of the movie. The Imitation Game is one such movie. The costumes, hair styles, cars, buildings, technology, everything seems taken out of history books to illustrate the past for us. The movie isn't trying to showcase these props to us or convince us of how difficult it was to depict World War II era England, they were subtly incorporated with nonchalance.  And that sold us on the time period better than anything else. The sets were gorgeous, the props were perfect, costumes were spot on.

The Imitation Game showed us one of the most important stories of the last century and is one of the greatest movies of 2014. This is one of the year's finest pieces of screen acting, the characters were outstanding, and the story was fascinating and pertinent to us today. This was an outstanding piece of screenwriting as well. It's emotionally complex, tailored to perfection, while being delicately nuanced and tragic. While the main character is gay, there are no sex scenes. Regardless of your views on homosexuality, there isn't anything in The Imitation Game that I think anyone could find offensive. The movie isn't trying to sell you on a biased agenda or tell you what to think about homosexuality; that's not what the movie is about. It's about trying to end a war, and how sometimes people who think outside the box are important to overcome seemingly impossible problems, and that their sexual orientation is immaterial to the question at hand. I loved The Imitation Game, and I highly recommend seeing it. It's been nominated for Academy Awards in eight categories including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. This is worth seeing, and if you're a fan of dramas, it's worth owning a copy  as well.

A Dangerous Method Movie Review

As a psychology major, I was psyched to see this movie (forgive the pun). I’ve heard the tale of Sigmund Freud’s and Carl Jung’s diverging theories a good many times over in various psychology classes. Occasionally I have thought it could have potential to be a good biopic movie. A Dangerous Method (2011) was finally released, and I was anxious to see it. When I finally got the chance, turns out it was quite different from what I was expecting.

Suffering from hysteria, Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) is hospitalized under the care of Dr. Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender). Jung has recently begun using the talking cure developed by Dr. Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) on some of his patients.  Spielrein’s psychological problems are deeply rooted in her childhood and violent father. She is highly intelligent and hopes to become a doctor, and eventually a psychiatrist. Later, Jung receives Otto Gross (Vincent Cassel) as a patient. Gross is a brilliant, promiscuous, and unstable psychoanalyst who prods Jung into the idea of an affair. The married Jung and Spielrein eventually become lovers. Meanwhile, Jung and Freud develop an almost father-son relationship. Freud sees the young Jung as a likely successor and standard-bearer of his theories. A deep rift develops between them when Jung begins to diverge from Freud’s belief that while psychoanalysis can reveal the cause of psychological problems, it cannot cure the patient.

Viggo Mortensen as Sigmund Freud is not a casting decision I would have made. I see him better suited in action roles, like in Lord of the Rings or Hidalgo.  I didn’t even think Mortensen looked the part of Freud. Once I saw A Dangerous Method my doubts were diminished.  Mortensen really does look and sound the part. He’s even smoking a cigar in every scene. Only once in a while did he seem to lapse into dramatic low tone that was more on par with Aragorn than with Freud.

Impressive as Mortensen is, the real credit must be given to Keira Knightley. She grants us a mind-blowing performance that seems to have been influenced by real patients suffering from hysteria. We see psychological fragility coupled with an intellectual toughness, which makes for an interesting character. She’s laughing like a madwoman one moment and frantically crying the next, and contorting her body in defensive positions. Then we see her slowing growing out of that state and into a calm and collected woman as her healing progresses. She played the mental condition so well, it’s disquieting to watch.

The way the story here is presented is not what I was expecting to see. It’s a very dialogue driven story. The dialogue is great and interesting, and you get a feel for Freud’s and Jung’s theories and views. But it’s almost as though most of the actual story was happening between scenes and we are mostly witnessing the characters discussing among themselves the real meat of the story after it happened. The movie does a lot more telling than showing. Granted the story is about the characters and how events affected them, but I would have liked to see more of the events themselves to understand why the characters are affected they way that they are.

There are two really great parts of the movie that are exceptions. The first part of the movie shows us Jung using Freud’s talking cure to help Spielrein. It’s still dialogue driven, but it was fascinating to see Freud’s theory at work. As a psychology major, it was almost like getting to witness the early psychoanalytic process as it was in the early 1900’s. Later we get to see Jung and Freud talking about their views. Freud is advocating the scientific method while Jung is discussing abstract supernatural concepts, and the tension mounts as their views conflict. Here we really see events happening; most other scenes simply talk about events happening.

Freud’s theories revolved a lot around the idea of sexual repression as the source of neurosis. As such, sex is discussed frequently in A Dangerous Method, though generally in an academic sense. There are also several brief sex scenes; you can’t seem make a movie about marital infidelity without them. The sexual content isn’t there to get a reaction from the audience; it really is pertinent to the story. But if you are offended by sexual imagery, discussion, or even partial nudity you may want steer clear of this film. Also because of this content, I wouldn’t recommend showing A Dangerous Method to young viewers.

A Dangerous Method isn’t what I was expecting from a Freud/Jung biopic, but it’s still a good drama. Even the details in costuming, lighting, and cinematography are impressive. If you don’t care for dialogue driven stories you may get bored with it. It would help to know something about psychoanalysis, or at least have an interest in learning, before seeing this movie. It’s a good movie that I think will appeal to only a small group of people, so I don’t recommend buying a copy or seeing it unless you are in that group.

What’s a dramatic movie about psychological problems that you thought was impressive? Comment below and tell me why!