To The Seas
Most of you are probably already familiar with the story of the fabled coins and the Black Pearl ship and the interesting characters, including of course Captain Jack Sparrow played by Johnny Depp. The swashbuckling tale is captivating, but not because it’s so powerfully dramatic or rich in character development and so forth; instead, it’s a fun story filled with plenty of comic relief, cool action scenes, and it just flows nicely, things you can’t quite say about the other two Pirates films.
Going into this review I knew that I already liked the film, but I was interested to see how the transfer to Blu-ray went. Simply put, it’s as impressive as you’ve probably already heard about. Not only are the environments and the costumes and lighting done very well from a directorial point of view, but also the pure technical quality on Blu-ray is mighty impressive. Whether on the high seas or in dark interiors, the video quality holds up exceptionally well. This is definitely a great film to showcase to some people who aren’t familiar with the visual difference between SD and HD. The audio quality is certainly not lacking either. Uncompressed 5.1 audio will rock any decent 5.1 system with powerful, booming bass and distinguishable clarity from the softer tracks in the film’s score. Pirates on Blu-ray is truly an exceptional audio and video presentation and a job very well done by Disney and Buena Vista.
Yar!
This release not only encompasses a great, fun film with top-notch audio/video presentation, but also nearly thirteen hours of extras. I doubt any of us will watch all thirteen hours of extras anytime soon, but you love to see a studio put that much into a release. These extras encompass the SD DVD’s extras and some more. The extras are in the form of multiple commentary tracks, many behind the scenes features and interviews, nineteen deleted scenes, and a blooper reel. You can’t fault the sheer quantity of extras, but you have to wonder if having fewer extras in HD would have been better than having a massive amount of extras in SD.
