Techtite DVD Reviews

The Film: Pirates of the Caribbean is what everyone intended. It's what a slew of movies this summer intended to be, which is fun. It's what a few other movies should have been, in that it wisely doesn't take itself too seriously, so you can just have fun. It's the sort of pirate tale Treasure Planet should have been last year, which was far less fun. Did I mention enough that this movie is fun? Well it is. In a summer movie season that often took itself way too seriously, this was a welcome change of pace.

The story has little to do with the ride, although it might as well, if the ride lasted for, say, 133 minutes. Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) is the ex-captain of a pirate ship known as the Black Pearl. Many legends are told of how Sparrow valiently escaped a deserted island, after being left there by his mutinous crew. However, even more tales are told of the fate of The Black Pearl upon his departure, which is now under a curse, roaming the seven seas as a ghost ship. The how and why to this curse is the majority of the story, so I won't spoil any more of the curse here.

As you would imagine, Sparrow needs help in his quest, and we're not just talking a band of seedy pirates! Fortunately, he comes across two people of far better moral standing: Will (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth (Keira Knightley). This leads to a nice romance subplot between Will and Elisabeth, each of whom has a reluctant link to the curse somehow, and as the cliché goes, their destinies are intertwined. This is not so good news for Will, though possibly better news for Elisabeth, since she is stuck in an arranged engagement with the town's dullard mayor. Will the swordsman Will swashbuckle her off her feet? Two guesses.

You may have heard that this otherwise mere "pirate tale" took approximately 125 million to make. This is because we are treated to many shots of the ghost ship itself, and its crew, now led by Sparrow's ex-pirate friend, Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush). In the light of day, these pirates look as human as you or me; in the light of the moon, they are like walking skeletons. This allows for a lot of shots not unlike the first moments of the ride, though it's also got a nice "Haunted Mansion" type feel to it, with skeletal pirates that are creepy yet not in a horrific way. In short, all young boys should love it.

Everyone else should love it to. If you want a movie with amusing dialog, this film is filled with it, from Barbossa's naming his monkey after his ex-captain, to Sparrow's numerous witty retorts. If you want a movie with good acting, well, I wouldn't say this film will lead to Oscar nominations, though it's really a hoot to see Depp and Rush ham it up so well in their roles as pirates. Rush, in particular, is so into the role you might not even recognize him as the same man who won an award for the far more gentlemanly tale of Shine. As for romance, while I could've done with some more such scenes there is enough to please the ladies of the audience as well. In short, this is a harmless yet pleasing flick for everyone.

It deserves mentioning that this film was no easy feat. Not even the most seasoned of film crews would ever consider making a film based on a mere theme park attraction, yet this film crew succeeds. Disney attempted this before, with The Country Bears, and made a real stinker in the process. This time, they take an intriguing pirate tale and interweave it into the overall look and feel of the pirate ride. While the story here is far superior to a mere theme park attraction, there is a homage here and there for the ride's fans, including "the redhead" (whose doppelganger slaps Sparrow in one scene), the pirate-with-the-pig, and of course the pirates in the jail cell who keep trying to get that dog to give them that jail cell key! For anyone who ever wanted the coolest Disney ride of all to last over two hours, this is the film for you.

As I said, this film was a welcome change of pace. I can see how so many films this summer required gritty storytelling, though shouldn't they also be fun to watch? Terminator 3 was particularly maudlin, and while I expected Hulk to be no fairy tale, it at least could've had a share of dark humor to liven up the very foreboding undertone. Irrefutably, Pirates will make more money than either one. Anyone who has seen the movie knows why. After all, who doesn't want to have fun during summer?

The DVD: What I like about Disney DVD is: any film these days that fares even slightly better than so-so gets about twice the bonus material treatment than it deserves. Seeing as how this film was a box office smash, you can imagine what this means in the way of extra material here. Two discs! Each filled with cool extras...

First things first: thank you, Johnny Depp, for not being like other modern Hollywood busybodies and offering your services as audio commentator. Said commentary includes comments by both director Gore Verbinski and Depp. Before you say "what about Keira Knightley?" she does offer her own commentary, though separately, in an alternate comment track including herself, Jack Davenport, and producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Topping off the trio (yes, a trio!) of audio commentary tracks is a comment reel by writers Stuart Beattie, Ted Elliot & Terry Rossio and Jay Wolpert. Didn't I tell you this was a DVD filled with extras...?

Now, on to the deleted scenes. How many? Nineteen! The first is an extended version of the scene where we first "meet" Will Turner. The second is a carriage ride between Elisabeth and Gov. Swann, notwworthy only because the governor talks about his civilized town, only to have the camera pan to the downtrodden people on the streets. Deletion number three explains some of the how and why to the haunted pirates finding the location of the medallion after all these years, when she falls into the ocean and the sea "activates" its powers somehow, alerting the pirates elsewhere to its presence there. "Only One Shot" is an extended scene of Will helping Jack escape from jail; while "Peep Show" has the pirate with a fake eye trying to catch a peek of Elisabeth, only to have her literally poke his eye out (his fake one, that is). A brief extension of when Will and Jack first visit the town in Tortuga (the same town where a lookalike of the ride's "redhead" slaps him!) completes page one of the deleted scenes.

On to page two. "Make it Last" involves a tavern Will and Jack enter while at Tortuga, while "A Bit of a Stick" shows how tightly wound Will is when entering this otherwise laid-back pirate's den. "It's Begun" is an extended scene of the cursed pirates taking the kidnapped Elisabeth to the cave, near the end of the film. "The French" is an improv scene between Jack and the pirates, where by all accounts Depp appears to have forgotten his lines and tries to make them up! Then theres a short deleted scene where Elisabeth and Jack are on a small island and Elisabeth considers walking the beach only to have Jack say that he was here before, and don't bother, because the island really isn't that big. Then there's a scene on that island that implies that it was Elisabeth who teaches Jack the classic "I Pirates Life for Me!" song from the ride. Topping the list on page two is an extended scene of Elisabeth accepting the proposal from the commodore to save the lives of her pirate friends.

Page three begins with an actually intriguing scene between Jack and Elisabeth as they enter the "graveyard of ships," which is hard to summarize but is simply a good character-developing scene. Then there's a scene extending the one where the pirates walk under water to reach the boat (being dead they don't breathe, see?). "Let Them Eat Cake" is an otherwise irrelevant scene between Mallot and Grapple, as they decide what to eat first on the ship. "The Immortal Captain Jack" is an extended scene where Jack considers the possibility that maybe the curse isn't such a bad thing, only to have Will convince him to return the gold he took after all. Then there's a scene where bird droppings fall onto the coat of one of the guards in the town (a rather goofy deletion!), and last but not least is "Happy Endings," which I can only presume they deleted because, to see the Commodore as willing as this to lose the girl and the pirate is a bit too over the top.

On to the other extras. "An Epic at Sea" is the title of the behind the scenes featurette, which includes everything from the actors out of character to the locations to the premiere, and best of all, offers each aspect in chapter format (you can jump to whatever element of the movie interests you). "Fly on the Set" are a batch of additional short-clip featurettes of how they did key scenes from the film: very nice, because you get to see the scene as it appears behind the crew that filmed it, seeing how it looked before being cleaned up for the final cut. "Diaries" is a trio of featurettes, starting with the producer's photo diary which is noteworthy mainly because it is narrated by Jerry Bruckheimer, instead of a mere slideshow. "Diary of a pirate" is a "diary" of a typical work day as seen by cast member Lee Arenberg. Then there's "Diary of a Ship," which is a video journal of the ship used for the film.

Below this long list of featurettes in the menu is "Below Deck," a set of video snippets about pirates that can either be seen within a Myst-style tour of the pirate ship, or separately, in a list of video scenes offered. Following this intriguing interactive feature is a three minute blooper reel, which is actually one of the more amusing such reels I've seen, if only because I love the actors in this movie. Then there's a scene progression of "Moonlight Serenade," showing how this scene went from storyboard to film. There's also an image gallery, as if you didn't have enough extras to scroll through!

Topping off the list of extras is one of my favorite additions, back from Disney's classic days of TV. Preserved on this disc is an episode of "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color," as it originally aired January 26th, 1968, showcasing the ride as it originally appeared in the park. This is a really cool addition to the film's DVD and a nice way to salute the ride that inspired the film. It makes for my favorite part of disc two, even if it's only 18 minutes. Hey; that's longer than the ride, after all!

This isn't even getting into the DVD-Rom extras PC owners with DVD drives can enjoy. You can see a preview of these extras on disc two by choosing the "pirates in the parks" menu. These PC-friendly extras include a history of the attraction, a "virtual reality viewer," the ability to see the film as its script scrolls next to the screen, the ability to see the original storyboards as the film progresses, a photo gallery of original conceptual drawings, and best of all, a "Moonlight becomes Ye" program, where any photo you upload to the program can be manipulated to look "haunted"!

Even if the movie wasn't worth the DVD purchase, this impressive list of extras is more than worth the price of this two-disc set. In fact, I would have bought this disc for the Wonderful World of Disney short in itself, had a known it was there beforehand. This was a good film, but the DVD is absolutely great. I'm more than glad that I actually own this one.

	Final Rating : Large Crater. One of the few Summer 2003 films that thankfully didn't take itself so seriously that all fun is drained out. This is a gem.
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