Pirates of the Caribbean

Submitted by on 4 September, 2003 - 12:00

Shiver me timbers? Not likely!

Young children will probably be enthralled by Pirates of the Caribbean, but I wasn't. I had not noticed that the film is co-produced by Disney and thus did not know what to expect. It is a film about a pirate ghost ship whose crew readily turn from their human form into rag-clothed living and moving skeletons.

Until a curse is lifted they are immortal - and in battle unbeatable… Much of the film is computer-generated graphics featuring the skeleton.

There have been a lot of "pirate" films, stretching way back to the silent films of the 1920s. These are nothing at all like the Pirates of the Caribbean.

In most of the old films the pirates are a species of righteous rebels, driven to piracy by injustice. "Authority" or someone in authority is the villain. For example in The Spanish Main (another term for the Caribbean sea) made in 1945, the villain is the Spanish governor, the hero an ill-treated honest sea captain, out for revenge and the destruction of tyranny. The whole thing is a parable about the struggle of "the democracies" against fascism. (Both the hero and the villain are played by actor-refugees from fascism [Paul Henreid and Walter Slezak].)

Or the much remade Captain Blood. The hero, Peter Blood, is a doctor transported as a convict for treating men wounded in the Protestant Monmouth Rebellion against King James II in 1685. He too is out for justice and revenge. A happy ending is made possible by the Protestant victory over Catholic King James in 1688. These old pirate films were, I suppose, tosh. There was often something heroic, nearly very romantic about the real pirate sea-robbers attacking ill-defended ships. But it was first-rate tosh! And the old films tell stories that were parables of the human struggle for freedom and against tyrants throughout history - tales of marine Robin Hoods and William Tells.

Not so here … I disliked it and felt I'd been tricked by dishonest advertising into wasting time and money. Kids might very well love it.

Score: 3/10
Reviewer: Jane Ryan

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