When I first heard that they were going to make a movie about the popular Disney ride 'Pirates of the Caribbean', I thought Disney was getting pretty desperate for ideas, and they were grasping at straws. Normally a ride is made about a movie after it is released and becomes popular. Like they did for ‘Back to the future’ and ‘Jaws’. This time they went the other way, they took a great ride and turned it into a movie. I have personally ridden this ride at Disney world in Florida too many times to count, and I love it, it is one of my favorites. To tell you the truth I didn’t think the movie was going to be that good. I saw the trailers and I have to admit they looked really good, but I have been burned by trailers one too many times. It wasn't until I finally was able to rent it that I realized how great this movie was. This was one of Johnny Depp's greatest performances to date. He is funny, smart and crazy all rolled up into one odd pirate.

The plot for this movie is basic enough for the youngest moviegoer, yet it is complex enough to keep most adults engulfed for the whole movie. The black pearl, a ghost pirate ship is sailing around searching for a missing gold medallion, and Johnny’s character ‘Captain Jack Sparrow’ is out to find the black pearl. There is more to it then that but I would hate to ruin any of the surprises, if you haven’t seen it yet.

The characters and the actors that were cast to play them were perfect; I was so impressed by the actors that I had to look them up after I saw the movie so that I could see what other movies they have been in. One such actress is Keira Knightley, she plays ‘Elizabeth Swann’ the governor's daughter that has been infatuated with pirates since she was a little girl. Orlando Bloom best known for his bow carrying Elvin character in Lord of the Rings plays ‘Will Turner’ a blacksmith apprentice who is in love with Elizabeth Swann. But, the best actor of the bunch is defintely Johnny Depp. I can’t imagine any other actor playing his part any better, hie makes this good movie into a great movie.

When I first started watching the movie I wasn’t too impressed with the special effects, most the action scenes where your typical battle action sequences, but as the movie progressed, the special effects got much better, if you watched the movie you know what I am talking about. The scenes with the ghosts are really cool, especially the fight sequences in the caves, which must have taken a long time to get perfect. The sword fighting scenes were very well scripted; they took a normal sword fight and kept adding little things to it, to make them all unique, and to keep the audience entertained. For an action movie there was a lot of comedy built in, and I think this caught me by surprise, I wasn’t expecting it to be so funny. Action comedies are a rare breed, and if you can get them to work, you can make a lot of money.

This is probably the first movie in a long time where I was entertained throughout; it is very rare for a movie nowadays to keep your attention for so long without having any dry spots, especially at 143 min. The editors did a great job of putting all of the scenes together without losing the whole flow and momentum of the movie.

If you haven’t seen this movie yet, I would highly recommend that you see it; it is defintely one of the best movies of 2003.