"You are without doubt the worst pirate I've ever heard of." "But you have heard of me."

Last night I had a Pirates of the Caribbean marathon with my friends. That took 10 hours alltogether, and I've slept like three hours. That is one of the reasons why I'm doing one post of all the four movies instead of four individual reviews. After all my memory might be quite blurry after such a long night. 

First of all, the stories of all the four movies (and possibly the fifth, too, I bet) are all very interesting. The progress of the stories is captivating, and so are the stories and the elements used in them. I've always loved how they used actual legends, and when they didn't, they made the stories seem like they could be real legends. Also mixing legends and spicing them up made the stories really amazing. If I'd have to say my favourite, I can't. The Curse of the Black Pearl is of course amazing, but then again I love At The World's End, which wouldn't been anything without Dead Man's Chest... And then again the quest to find the fountain of youth in On Stranger Tides is amazing. All the stories are more or less amazing, especially when you've been watching these movies since you were a kid.

There's one very unique thing about the characters in these movies, compared to typical fantasy movies. In Pirates Of The Caribbean, the audience can really like all characters. The world isn't just divided to good and evil in this movie, which is amazing: even the "bad guys" have motives, and usually those make them so very human. Like Captain Barbossa is supposed to be the bad guy in the first movie, but you can still understand what he and his crew are going through, and  you feel bad for them, and seeing Barbossa after the first movie is like wow, amazing, he's back. You can find some humanity in everyone: Davy Jones, Blackbeard... Even Cutler Beckett, even though he's a total ass. Still all the characters have flaws, some more than others. All the characters are so very well written. They aren't just characters, they feel so very human.

I love the action scenes in these movies. Most of them are in some way clever and funny, and that's amazing. Of course some action scenes aren't as good, because there are way too many people fighting at once, and it's hard to keep a track on what's happening. (At The World's End, mostly). But especially the fight about the key between Jack, Will and Norrington in Dead Man's Chest was a really good one, it is hilarious and exciting, and it's easy to remember and to keep track on.

And I have to say, I'm still kind of amazed by the effects. Especially in the first one, the cursed crew was done so well considering the movie came out in 2003. 

And if there's a movie series with perfect soundtrack, it's this one. You could say everyone knows "He's A Pirate", but there are so many other great tracks there, especially At The World's End has amazing music.

I love these movies mostly because they are exciting - all the fights, all the storms and curses and everything... It's all very thrilling, sometimes even when you've seen the movie already. The movies are even funny, even though it's typical action adventure type of humour, but it made all of us laugh here. Even if the movies are not perfect, the structure, humour and  thrill are close to perfect.

I kind of hate to say this, but even though I was sort of excited about the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, it is kind of like the weakest link of the bunch. The story is amazing, they used amazing legends there. There's just that something is missing. And I kind of want to blame it all on Rob Marshall, because Gore Verbinsky did such a marvellous job. Either it's just how different the story was (without Will and Elizabeth), or Verbinsky had something Marshall doesn't.

Still, I'm excited about the fifth movie. I don't actually think they are just prolonging the series way too much. There just is such a strong bond between the first three movies that adding anything else would seem kind of useless. But I think the writers can still offer a lot to the world we've known since 2003. Pirates of the Caribbean are good, they are amazing adventure movies with interesting characters and all that. I say let them make movies as long as the writing and the characters are still as good, but if characters start to become bland and the amazing structure goes wrong, then I'll complain too.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl

Year: 2003

Director: Gore Verbinsky

Writers: Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Stuart Bettie and Jay Wolpert.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

9/ 10

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Year: 2006

Director: Gore Verbinsky

Writers: Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Stuart Bettie and Jay Wolpert

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

7 / 10

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Year: 2007

Director: Gore Verbinsky

Writers: Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Stuart Bettie and Jay Wolpert

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

8 / 10

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Year: 2011

Director: Rob Marshall

Writers: Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Stuart Bettie and Jay Wolpert, Tim Powers (novel "On Stranger Tides")

☆☆☆☆☆

5 / 10