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EMPIRE 9/03

Thrill ride
It veered dangerously towards Waterworld territory and was based on a boring theme park attraction. So how did Pirates of the Caribbean break the curse of Cutthroat Island to become the ultimate summer blockbuster?

Keith Richards, lizard-skinned rock reprobate and chief axe-wielder for the Rolling Stones, may find it surprising - if, indeed, he finds anything surprising - that he has helped save the pirate movie genre. Languishing in a watery grave, bloated and consumed by their own self-importance, recent sea-bound turkeys such as Cutthroat Island and Roman Polanski's Pirates had condemned the once-glorious movie buccaneers to the status of Hollywood laughing stock. There was every chance reruns of silent Russian cinema were more bankable. Well, not anymore. Thanks to our Keith, probably snoozing off another night on the tiles as we speak, times have changed. Pirates are hip again. Pirates are in. pirates, goddammit, are where it's at.
It was that most loquacious and rock-flavoured of movie stars, Johnny Depp, whose decision to model his role, at the eye of the Pirates of the Caribbean hurricane, entirely on the legendary musician, that has made this Disney romp the summer's big-time resurrection story. Musicals? Phooey. As soon as you witness Depp get his gold-sheathed chops into Captain Jack Sparrow, you'll take it as written: pirates are the new rock 'n' roll.
"I thought pirates were the rock stars of the 18th century," shrugs Johnny Depp, puffing neatly on a cheroot ("You mind the poison?") and giving every question the full bearing of a preternaturally becalmed personality. "I got the thinking of rock stars of today and just the way Keith carries himself…" Depp drifts off into reverie; he and Richards are long-time buddies. He is currently poised at the head of a hotel table, dressed inch-perfect in a denim shirt overlaid with a pinstripe waistcoat, his golden lock (coloured for a new movie??) hidden beneath a bobble hat. He looks damn cool. To be honest, he could be wearing Rupert Bear trousers and a bin liner and still look like the hippest cat in town. There is something unshakeably, genetically stylish about Depp. And he is incapable of letting it slip.
"I wasn't interested in doing an imitation of him or a character study of him," he continues. 'I just used a memory of spending time with him, the way he carries himself. He is very graceful, very charismatic, elegant and incredibly witty. I also think he is the greatest rock 'n' roll star of all time."
Captain Jack Sparrow, channelling Richards, plus threads of cartoon skunk Lothario Pepe LePew and a distinctly Rasta vibe, is the wow-factor for Pirates of the Caribbean, Disney's mega-budget ($125 million), theme park-based, CGI-infused, finely-cheekboned gamble. Like a salt-lashed Adam Ant, with implanted gold teeth, Depp's galleon-sized homage tot the piratical dash is a drawling, sprawling, gentleman rogue perpetually at half tilt, and worth all the CGI ILM can cook up. A more perfect fit of man, movie and drug-addles riff master is hard to imagine.
"It was awesome to watch Johnny," iterates lifelong fan Orlando Bloom, who lends his new-found popularity to straight-arrow black smith hero Will Turner, the Wise to Depp's Morecambe, if you will. "I really don't think anyone, in terms of the studio, would have expected to get what they got, which is this completely fantastic character; he always creates a character that is so different, but he went from the guts with this one. I kind of slotted into the sort of more typical boring hero-type role and kept looking at him thinking: 'Fuck, I wish I was doing that.'"

When producer Jerry Bruckheimer came on board the project, the script sucked. As one of Hollywood's major powerbrokers, with more home runs under his designer belt than he's had caviar sarnies, you don't start dabbling with a defunct genre with some soppy effort about lantern-jawed heroes rescuing coy damsels from bearded tyrants whose dialogue amounts to bellowing, "Ahhh-harrrrr!" to the gallery at opportune moments.
"I make movies that I want to go and see," Bruckheimer says emphatically - you get the feeling, judging from the icy calm of Mr. Bruckheimer, that everything he says is emphatic. "And when Disney first gave me the script, I didn't want to see that movie." So he took the script to Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott, the witty scribed behind Shrek, who immediately came up with a sly twist. What if the bad pirates were cursed? What if, by the silvery beams of moonlight, they revealed their true selves - a crew of nightmarish, skeletal undead, unable to taste, touch or "take pleasure from a woman of questionable virtue" until the curse was lifted? What if it required a 'good' pirate, of dubious morals, to aid the heroes in defeating the despicable bad 'uns? Now you're talking. "That really excited me," concurs Bruckheimer. "I thought that the combination of cursed pirates and Johnny Depp was something I would go and see."
As a concept, everybody loves prates. Director Gore Verbinski immersed himself in pirate lore, researching the scabrous, violent history of the real scourges of the seven seas. Bloom and Depp couldn't help but grin when they were offered the script ("I felt nine years old again," was Depp's reaction). Even Keira Knightley, kidnapped heroine and potential paramour of Bloom, Elizabeth Swann, was already a convert. "When I was five I had the hat and sword and eye patch and everything," she sighs happily.
After all, they cut such suave figure, the gentleman rogues of their day, raping and a-pillaging with such debonair flair and fashion sense it hardly constitutes unlawful behaviour. Which, of course, bears no relation tot the gruesome, brutal reality. But then, who wants a pirate movie that hankers after authenticity? You want it to wallow in those cutthroat clichés, the memorable bric-a-brac of legend that Uncle Walt helpfully tucked into his leisurely theme park ride. Indeed, this is a film that sticks firmly to the party line: if pirates are the business, let's make sure they do the business. "If you look at those bad pirate movies," says Bruckheimer, "I don't think they have the humour of Johnny and some of these pirates. This is a pirate movie with a wink, something a little different, and hopefully the audience will appreciate that." The script now shipshape, they still face the other great drawback of the pirate milieu - you have to shoot on the open sea. And we all know what that means. In a word: Waterworld. Yeesh.
"It is very difficult because the wind always changes and you can't predict things," agrees Bruckheimer, with a tone that suggests that such trials are the realm of mere mortals. "What we did was an enormous amount of research into where both Waterworld and Titanic got into trouble. We based our entire movie on what we learned from their mishaps." The trick, it transpires, is to cheat. You place your ships in a dock, away from the diffident swells and feckless gusts, then use your digital paintbrush to remove the background. In fact, only six days of the entire shoot took place out on the ocean free, a product of necessity for a fierce, multi-angled ship-to-ship battle. "It was all very well planned - we only went a day over," affirms the producer with a glint of satisfaction. Okay, but you still have half your cast turning into filthy skeletons, complete with scraps of rotted flesh clinging to their bones, including Geoffrey Rush, an irritable monkey and Mackenzie Crook (geeky Gareth from The Office), whose ill-fitting wooden eyeball spends most of the film rolling across the deck. Another job for the every-ready, not-job-too-big, no-deadline-too-soon FX magicians at ILM.
"They really bought into the concept," retorts the ever-sure Bruckheimer, for whom no question is too negative. "The results are spectacular. These weren't just skeletons lying on a deck; they had to act and behave as if fully human, taking part in sword fights and climbing up the rigging."
The visuals speak for themselves - at one point, to demonstrate his physical dilemma, Rush's dastardly Captain Barbossa downs a bottle of scarlet rum and we watch deliciously as the booze seeps out between his empty ribs. Each of his rag-tag gang of scallywags comes complete with their natty zombie equivalent.
If all of this sounds like a whole lot more pizzazz than the granny-friendly jaunt between decaying animatronic puppets mumbling, "A pirate's life for me," of the original ride, then that is entirely deliberate. There were no actual requirements from the studio to stick to the rusty Disneyland 'adventure'. Even so, Verbinski and the writers were cute enough to add plenty of snap references along the way to keep the trivia goons at bay.
"Gore did a wonderful job of creating those scenes," confirms Bruckheimer. "The dog with the keys is the most memorable thing from the ride, and when they walk through Tortuga (a riotous pirate dive) there are a lot of things, like the guy drinking from two flagons. However, the misconception is still that this is a movie about a ride; it's not." Bruckheimer refuses to dwell on it. He wants to emphasize how sexy and modern his movie is. After all, he secured the services of two of Britain's hottest young star: Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley. So you can stuff your clockwork barges and nursery-sized flume section. Feel the sex appeal.

One-time Elf and full-time heartthrob Orlando Bloom, looking so ridiculously healthy and handsome it makes you want to spit, is yanking back his unruly black locks (grown long for Troy) and trying to encapsulate the movie in a sentence. The words, sadly, are evading him. "Ah mate, it's fun," he 'describes'. "It's a pirate movie. Who didn't want to be a pirate at some point in their life? It ticks all the boxes. It's kind of across the board; it's got a weighty side to it, a fun subject matter and a supernatural thing. Which is kind of intriguing. The story itself is very intricate. When I was reading it I was going, 'So hang on a minute, I see we go from here to here, wand who is cursed and who isn't, and that there's a coin…'" In a crowded nutshell, Bloom is Will Turner, a black smith orphan of pirate stock (unbeknownst to him), with a heft crush on Knightley's governor's daughter (who wouldn't have?). Turns out she's got his Aztec coin, needed by bad pirate Barbossa (Rush to end his curse, and gets kidnapped by the nefarious crew of The Black Pearl. So, Will gives chase with good pirate Jack Sparrow (Depp), who happens to be the Pearl's former captain. Anyway, it's Will who Barbossa needs… Oh, just go see it. Suffice it to say, the backdrop is the sunlit Caribbean: cerulean skies, emerald seas, golden beaches, the lot. Must have been a trial to shoot. "It was quite hard work to be honest," says Bloom. "People think if you go to these exotic locations it is amazing, but it's often quite gruelling. You don't have many of the creature comforts." Knightley, who has the frothy confidence only flawless looks and being a bit posh gives you, sees things differently.
"I went into work every day on a speedboat," she grins, "and got into a big old 17th century ship and sailed out 26 miles which, I have to say, wasn't too bad. It could be a lot worse than the Caribbean."
One of the most gratifying elements of the movie is the robust, semi-cynical, can-do persona granted to damsel Elizabeth Swann. She spends most of the time getting on with things while the idiot heroes dither, usually to the tune of her exasperated mantra: "Bloody pirates!"
"She's not like me at all," Knightley asserts unconvincingly. "She is feisty, she is fun and I am neither of those. She is courageous and I'm not. I suppose she is English - I'm English."
The part also required plenty of leaping, dangling and whacking bad guys with frying pans. While the boys farted about a swashbuckling school, she was in the thick of things. Mostly, without the aid of a stunt double. "That was strange for me because I am really lazy and it is really hard for me to get off my arse. It was all so spur of the moment: 'Isn't it a good idea if you hit a guy over the head with a pole?' I didn't really have the chance to think about it much before I did it." Elizabeth does get to kiss Orlando, though, which can't be bad. Knightly waves away such an unprofessional suggestion and sighs (this has been the constant question since she began the promotional barrage). "He's a sweetheart. We got on really well. Yet, we only had, like, three or four scenes together. We are in love, but I get taken by pirates. Think about it! Then who has come to rescue me? Hello…"
And where does she stand on Johnny Depp? "No, he was never my thing," she retorts. "I wasn't head-over-heels, which is a good job. He's not bad-looking though is he?"

Which brings us, full sweep, back to Captain Jack. If Pirates is as big a hit as it deserves to be, then Johnny Depp may well have unwittingly lifter himself into franchise territory. The idea, of course, makes his eyes glaze over. That was never the point. "I'm still too dumb to make choices just because it is going to be successful. In terms of this being a gigantic production, I still chose it the same way I choose other films. I really saw something in the character I could do something with."
The proof of the pudding has come pretty close to home. Depp's four year-old daughter, Lily-Rose, has been watching the Pirates trailer on loop, as long as daddy is available to punch rewind. "It's funny," he admits, as if it has just occurred to him. "She knows that mummy (Vanessa Paradis) is a singer. But she actually think that her daddy is a pirate." Yo ho ho.

Pirates of the Caribbean: the curse of the Black Pearl
Year after year, lazy poster quotes try to convince audiences that the latest blockbuster movie is 'a rollercoaster ride'. Pirates of the Caribbean does, in actual fact, have its roots in a theme park attraction - a slow-moving boat trip past richly detailed tableaux of lusty buccaneers and skeletons who breathed their last grasping for forbidden treasure; not the most likely base material to turn into cinema gold. But producer Jerry Bruckheimer proves yet again that he's a big screen alchemist where sheer entertainment is concerned. Pirates of the Caribbean is, without a doubt, the best blockbuster of the summer.
Director Gore Verbinski steers his ship through choppy commercial waters by keeping the romance, adventure and comedy on an even keel. If there's the slightest niggle to be had, it's probably that the swashbuckling sequences don't really lay down the challenge to the Zorros or Robin Hoods. But such cares are swept aside by a rollicking tale of pirate lore, with cursed treasure, secret identities and enough acts of betrayal and loyalty to keep the final showdown as sparky as the firecrackers in Blackbeard's whiskers. It's also very funny. Shrek writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio spice up the pirate genre as gamely as they did fairy tales; but on the comedy maps it's Johnny Depp's inspired turn as Captain Jack Sparrow that really marks the spot. Depp, arguing that pirates were the rock stars of their day, models his entire performance on Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones; it's there in every slurred vowel and every drug-fried wiggle of the head. There's an endearing dignity to Sparrow's hunger for fame. "You are, without a doubt, the worst pirate I've heard of," says one British officer. "Yes," replies Jack, "but you have heard of me." Gloriously over-the-top, this performance is pitched only as high as the film's fun factor itself. In terms of physical precision and verbal delivery, it's a masterclass in comedy acting. Depp steals the show, but leaves some plunder for Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, surely the sexiest young couple in British cinema - nay, the world. Orlando plays it straight but gets the girl; and if you think Keira looks good in a dress, wait until you see her running around in redcoat and breeches. Others clearly having a ball while gigging in the rigging include Geoffrey Rush with his panto Captain Hook routine, and CG-eyes pirate Mackenzie Crook (from The Office). Without a precious formula to adhere to or franchise to maintain (the spin-off ride exists already), Pirates revels in its freedom to do its own thing. That dais, its adventure style is indebted to the likes of Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Mummy in its mix of matinee action and horror that won't send the kids shrieking from the room. The ghostly figures on the Black Peal are cursed to sail the seas in a state between living and dead. When they step into full moonlight, their rotting flesh and bones become visible - adding a delightful shiver to proceedings. Best of all, Pirates is a film that prides itself on lively detail and top-grade craftsmanship, but doesn't take itself too seriously. That's a lesson that nearly every one of its blockbuster rivals would do well to take on board. Audiences aren't cajoled into feeling that they should be having fun; they simply are having fun because the movie is too. ANY GOOD?
Johnny, the kids and the pirates have a number one hit on their hands. They raise the Jolly Roger and make the other summer blockbusters walk the plank.
* * * * * (brilliant - an unmissable film)

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