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| Pirates
of the Caribbean DVD Review |
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Order this DVD from Amazon.com
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Pirates
of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
2-Disc Collector's Edition
(Buena Vista Home Entertainment)
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| DVD
Release Date:
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December
5, 2003
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Length:
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143 mins.
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| Rated:
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PG-13
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| Format:
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Widescreen (2.35:1) Enhanced for 16x9 Televisions
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Audio:
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English
DTS 5.1 Digital Surround Sound, English Dolby Digital 5.1
Surround Sound, French Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
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| Subtitles:
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English Captions, French Subtitles
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| Extras:
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19
Deleted and Alternate Scenes, Blooper Reel, Multiple Audio
Commentaries, "An Epic At Sea" The Making of Pirates,
"Below Deck" An Interactive History of Pirates,
"Fly on the Set" Featurette, "Diary of a
Pirate" "Diary of a Ship", Producer's Photo Diary
with Jerry Bruckheimer, Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color,
"Moonlight Serenade" Scene Progression, Image
Galleries, DVD ROM Features
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Pirates
of the Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl is the best
movie of the year. I don't care what movie wins Best Picture at the
Academy Awards. And sure, Finding Nemo made more at the box office,
but that was probably more from the kiddies seeing it over and over
and over again. Hands down, POTC was thoroughly the most most
entertaining, most enjoyable movie to hit the big screen this year.
Stupid Oscars. When will they start to recognize movies like this? Why
should this movie be relegated to Oscar's ugly cousin, the Golden
Globe? Why?
If you're one of the handful of people who hasn't seen the movie (like
I was before checking out the DVD a few days ago) the story goes
something like this... The Pirates of a ship called "The Black
Pearl" stole some cursed Aztec gold and must now walk the earth
as the undead for eternity, or until they can return all the gold to
where it belongs. It's unfortunate for Elizabeth Swann (Keira
Knightley) that she holds the final piece of gold. So, when the
Pirates, lead by the ferocious Captain Barbossa (Geoffery Rush), catch
wind of Keira's misfortune, they kidnap her in hopes of lifting their
terrible curse. Lucky for Keira she has an admirer in master
blacksmith and swordsman Will Turner (Orlando "Legolas"
Bloom). Of course, Bloom can't take on a ship of Pirates by himself,
so he enlists the aide of Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), former
captain of "The Black Pearl". That's the basic setup.
There's more, of course, but you'll have to check it out to find out
what happens.
As I said before, in my opinion, this is easily the best movie this
year. And fittingly, it's also one of the best DVDs of the year - from
the audio and video quality right down to the 10 plus hours of bonus
materials. Presented in 2.35:1 widescreen (enhanced for 16x9
Televisions) the video quality is everything you would expect. The
movie was shot beautifully, and it shows. As for the audio, we get the
choice of DTS 5.1 Digital Surround and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
Sound. As always, I chose the DTS and it was incredible - at some
points I even thought I was on "The Black Pearl". And, of
course, the DVD comes with the trusty old THX Optimizer.
For commentaries, we get 4 of them, each of them worth checking out if
you're interested. The first of the feature length commentaries is
from Johnny Depp and director Gore Verbinski which is quite
entertaining, as to be expected from Johnny Depp - Verbinski was a
surprise. The second feature-length commentary comes from the writers
Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio and Stuart Beattie and Jay Wolpert. For
me, this was the better listen as they go over the various versions of
the scripts and tales from the set. The final two commentaries are
from selected scenes. The first, from producer Jerry Bruckheimer was
pretty short and there wasn't a lot there. He goes over a few aspects
of the film, and although he seems very enthusiastic about the
project, it's nothing I haven't heard before. The final selected scene
commentary, from Keira Knightley and Jack Davenport (the commodore)
runs for just over an hour and is really quite enjoyable as the two
seem to have a lot of fun together.
Insert disc 2 for more special features, and here's where you get into
the meat of the DVD. First up, there's the making-of featurette titled
"An Epic At Sea". Running at just under 40 minutes, you have
the option of watching it all at once, or checking out the different
chapters focusing on the actors, locations, production design, the
ships, costumes and make-up, stunts and swords, visual effects and the
premiere which was held at the actual POTC attraction at Disneyland.
I've never been there, but hope to make it some day. The featurette
was fantastic - at times it could have benefited from some narration,
but overall, it was a great look behind the scenes at the making of
the movie.
Next are the featurettes compiled to create the "Fly on the
Set". This is basically a camera crew on the set on 5 different
days of the making of the film, documenting what goes on behind the
scenes. Again, with this feature, it really could have used some
narration, a commentary or at least an introduction. It is just sort
of there - without any explanation as to why. Sure, I guess it's
really kind of self-explanatory, but it would have been nice to have
something to explain to the viewer what we are seeing. That being
said, it is still a great featurette just to see what really happens
and how much work goes into a production of this magnitude.
Then, there's the "Diaries" feature, of which there are
three to choose from. The first is the "Producer's Photo
Diary". Here, we are given the benefit of an introduction by the
producer in question, Jerry Bruckheimer. The featurette is a
collection of photos taken by Bruckheimer on the set of the movie. An
avid photographer, his passion for the hobby shows in some really
great pictures. The second diary, titled "Diary of a
Pirate", is a video journal captured on film by Lee Arenberg who
played Pintel in the movie. Arenberg is one of those actors you see
all the time, but you don't really know who he is. You might recognize
him most from Seinfeld. Anyways, it runs just under 10 minutes and is
a fun look at the movie from someone who was actually there. The last
featurette is titled "Diary of a Ship" which is a look at
the "Lady Washington" which was turned into "The
Interceptor" for the film. It chronicles the journey of the ship
from California to the island of St. Vincent in the Caribbean and it's
preparation for filming in the movie. Some decent material here.
The next and probably best feature for pirate enthusiasts is titled
"Below Deck" which is an interactive look at the history of
pirates. You have the option of either manually going through the ship
and checking out all the chapters (titled "Set Sail"), or if
you are too lazy to do that, they do it for you with a little story
titled "A Prisoner's Last Tale". If you couldn't even be
bothered with that, there is an index of all the different chapters
and you can watch them individually. Of interest were the looks at
some famous pirates from history (both real and fictional) such as
Blackbeard and Sir Francis Drake. Definitely worth checking out if
you're looking for a history lesson - or if you're doing a school
project.
Blooper reels are always fun, and the one included here is no
exception. There's not much else I can say. Similarly, deleted scenes
are always fun and/or interesting to look at. Here, there are 19
deleted/alternate scenes all of which are worth a gander. If anything,
I'd say they would have been better with some commentary or at least a
filmmaker introduction.
The scene in the movie where Keira discovers that the pirates are
cursed (titled "Moonlight Serenade") is a great scene, not
only in terms of the story, but in terms of the special effects. We
get a look a the making of the scene with the next feature. Narrated
by some of the films techs, we get a look at how the scene came
together which is a neat little feature for those who enjoy looking
behind the scenes from a technical perspective.
The "Image Gallery" was rather interesting although, again,
it really could have used some sort of background. All you get are the
pictures. An introduction? No. Some commentary? No. Even some
background music would have been nice, but we aren't given anything of
the sort. So, while the pictures were nice and all, they were really
kind of dry and boring.
"Pirates in the Park" is a look at the Disneyland attraction
that the movie is based on. Included here is a portion of a
"Disneyland from The Pirates of the Caribbean to The World of
Tomorrow", a special that aired in January 1968. Although Walt
Disney died in 1966, we get to hear from Walt himself as he describes
the work-in-progress attraction and fast forward to the grand opening
of the attraction a couple of years later. I think this would have
been better if I had actually experienced the attraction first hand.
Still, it was fun to watch.
Some great DVD-ROM features for those of you who have the equipment.
On the first disc, there's a Script Scanner and a Storyboard Viewer.
With the script scanner, you can watch a split-screen of the movie
with the script included. The Storyboard Viewer takes a couple of
minutes to load, but similar to the script scanner, you can watch a
split screen view of the movie with some Storyboards from the film.
Both of these are great features for any aspiring filmmakers out
there. Insert disc 2 and there's more to check out, most of which
involves the Disneyland attraction. Included are "Dead Men Tell
No Tales: A History of the Attraction", an Attraction Image
Gallery and a Virtual Reality Viewer. There's also a feature called
"Moonlight Becomes Ye" which allows you to change a picture
of yourself into a picture of a cursed pirate. I didn't have a good
picture of myself, so I couldn't really take advantage of this
feature, but if anyone has a cool picture they'd like to share, feel
free to email me.
I'd be amiss if I didn't mention the Pirates' other treasure - namely
the hidden features. When you insert the second disc of the set and
select "Fly On The Set", select the "Play All"
feature. When you press the 'Right' arrow key on your remote, this
will highlight one of the teeth on the monkey. Press 'Enter' you will
get see a clip of the construction of the pirate cave. When you select
"Below Deck" and then "Set Sail" and then press
the 'Left' arrow key twice, this will highlight the skull on the
medallion and give you access to an animated look at a scene from the
movie. Also in the "Beyond Deck" menu, if you select
"Scene Index", highlight "Pirate Ships" and press
the 'Left' arrow key on your remote, this will highlight a ring on the
skeleton's hand. Press 'Enter' and you'll be able to see the film's
Japanese trailer. Finally, when you visit the "'Moonlight
Serenade' Scene Progression", if you highlight the "Main
Menu" selection and press the "Down" button on you
remote twice, this will highlight the skeleton's tooth. Press enter
and you will see an interview clip with Keith Richards (from the
Rolling Stones) where he talks about Johnny Depp using him as an
inspiration for the character of Captain Jack Sparrow.
All in all, this DVD set is stacked with the quality special features
you would expect from such a quality film. If I had to offer a
criticism, it would be that I would have liked to have heard more
commentary or narration with some of the special features, but that is
easily forgiven.With Christmas just around the corner, this DVD
treasure would make a perfect gift to add anybody's loot.
| The Movie: |
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10/10 |
| The
Extras: |
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8/10 |
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did you think?
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Pirates of the Caribbean
Liam Cullin -
Editor
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