How can this film not put a smile on your face? It’s a classic mix of pirates, sword fights, cursed treasure, and a love story. Pirate films, like Westerns, seem to belong to a bygone age of Hollywood film making. We’ll never see them back in full force, but precisely because of their absence, Pirates of the Caribbean is a unique breath of fresh air, touched with nostalgia and spiced with grand adventure. Johnny Depp throws his whole heart into the utterly over-the-top Captain Jack Sparrow; Orlando Bloom does the honest young man battling to save the girl he loves; and Geoffrey Rush is the wicked Captain Barbossa, doomed to a life of undead misery until he finds the last piece of Aztec Gold. Every set piece is big and bold, filled with explosive action. All the pirate stereotypes and clichés are present and accounted for, but brushed down and jazzed up for (post) modern times. A rollickin’ good romp, poppet. Yarrr!