[7.9/10] It’s hard to say what makes a perfect popcorn film. It has to be light without feeling weightless. It has to be exciting without feeling overly serious. It has to have thrills and spills without just becoming another action movie. It’s an unexpectedly difficult tightrope to walk, one that more than a few films stumble over, seeming too airy, maudlin, or dull.

*Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl*, on the other hand, walks it superbly, despite its now-most iconic character’s wandering gait. The movie features swashbuckling skirmishes and grand set pieces, romance and drama, and sly humor and pace to keep the project light on its feet. Despite a few overlong or muddled stretches, it’s tailor-made for the summer adventure flick crowd, hitting those pleasure centers in your brain and forcing the world beyond ships and scallywags to disappear for a couple of hours.

Of course, the grand buccaneering shadow cast by the film comes in the form of Jack Sparrow (pardon me, *Captain* Jack Sparrow). It remains doubtful that, whatever the undeniable cultural impact of the character, he justified a half dozen increasingly indulgent and unnecessary further adventures. And yet, he is unquestionably a major part of what makes the first *Pirates* movie work, back when he was a sideshow and not the main event.

Much of that is just Johnny Depp’s performance. He flounces and sports wry smiles and delivers every line with a hint of sarcasm and whimsy that makes Sparrow spring off the screen. But he also serves an important structural and thematic role in the film. He is an agent of chaos, one who not only disrupts the staid pecking orders of both the British Navy and the Pirates’ Code, but who throws thrilling monkey wrenches (sometimes at actual monkeys) into what might otherwise be a fairly standard adventure story. His mere presence as a wildcard in the proceedings adds another pole amid the dashing hero, damsel in distress, and dastardly villain who fill out the other major players in the movie.

But he also represents freedom. That’s the closest thing a popcorn flick like *Pirates* has to a point. Self-actualization means breaking free of both state and expectation and following your favored wind wherever it pushes your sails. For both Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan, who are penned in by their society-limited existences, he’s walking proof that there’s an alternative out there if you abide only by what you’re capable of, not what the world says you can or should or oughtn’t to do.

Even if Sparrow had never existed, *Pirates* thrives on the back of a sharp, funny, well-built script. Much of the film’s success comes from that perfect balancing of tone, injecting enough sardonic humor to make the more melodramatic parts easier to swallow, acknowledge the inherent goofiness of the ideas at play without explicitly winking at them, and keep the movie feeling nimble and light even when it turns into a horror movie. It’s apt to let Depp and Geoffrey Rush engage in ham-to-ham combat, adding in stakes without taking itself too seriously.

That speaks to the smart construction of the movie. Say what you will about basing a feature film on a theme park ride as IP, but every character in this movie wants something and the search for it defines and changes them. Jack wants his ship, his captaincy, and his revenge. Barbosa wants to be rid of his curse and to feel again. Elizabeth wants a life more grand and adventurous than the wife of a rich commodore. Will wants...well...Elizabeth, but more than that, to prove his worthiness and come into his own beyond being an apprentice to a drunken lazy blacksmith. The movie sets all of this up early, bounces the characters off of one another in different combinations, and lets their wants and wishes drive the action and the choices of the film.

The script is remarkably efficient at setting this all up and letting it play out. Exposition is dropped in amusing and/or character-revealing conversations rather than unceremoniously doled out. Twists in the narrative come through at a good cadence, creating new challenges for Elizabeth, Will, Jack, and others. And the movie is chock full of great little setups, payoffs, and running gags. The mention of a name, complaints about corsets, simple phrases and daring sword-throws and even pieces of fruit take on new meanings and contexts as the movie progresses, with a sort of echoing, call and response between moments. *Pirates* works when you’re half-paying attention to it, but there’s attention to detail to be taken in when you’re apt to look closer.

Director Gore Verbinski marries that sturdy script with some rousing visuals. The world of Port Royal, Tortuga, and Isla de Muerta are fully realized here, a melange of ruddy bilge rats, clean and pristine offers, and massive ships that cause the two to intersect. The movie makes the most of its ghost story conceit, using the peeking rays of moonlight to produce all manner of creative sequence featuring memorable skeletal designs for its baddies.

But beyond the CGI fireworks, Verbinski and company come up with any number of energetic and engrossing set pieces. From all types of sword fights, to grand chases and escapes, to ship to ship combat, the film’s cinematographers and editors stage each with infectious alacrity. There’s character in the actionier scenes, with wry swashbuckling conversations, almost slapstick interludes, and memorable moves and personality injected into what could otherwise be empty spectacle.

At times, the movie overindulges on this front, with some sequences, even well done ones, running too long. Likewise, the middle portion of the film tends to sag, as the stakes and goals start to get crossways and you can feel *Pirates* straining to connect its boffo beginning with its rollicking climax. As much as this movie punches up what could have easily been a generic adventure story with character and a delightfully arch sensibility, it occasionally gets stuck in the mud around the halfway mark of its journey.

Still, despite some of the usual foibles, the first *Pirates* movie is so much better than it ever had to be. An animatronics-filled boat ride-turned-feature film could have easily been another spate of disposable entertainment. Instead, *Curse of the Black Pearl* ascended to the ranks of the crowd-pleasing blockbuster champions, blending laughs with excitement, action with character, and the usual adventure setup with unique spins on the material. The great popcorn movie is deceptively difficult to achieve, but Jack Sparrow’s first voyage succeeds with flying colors.