"Swashbuckling" is one of my favorite words in the English language. I don't know what a swash is, or even what kind of buckle is involved—is it like a belt buckle, or one of those little, two-loop, thread-y things, or what?—but if there are swashes just begging for it, I'll be more than happy to sit down and watch the buckling.

Pirates of the Caribbean is, of course, loosely based on the Disney World ride of the same name. It's been roughly ten years since I've visited the Mickey Mecca, but as I recall, the highlights of the ride included a broken boat and an intense compulsion to find out how deep the water was by pushing my best friend over the side. But if you look at some of what's going on in the background of the many tableaus, you'll see some first-class pillaging going on, which redeems the whole experience a little. Even Disney-fied pirates still chase maidens and burn stuff, and isn't that what piracy's all about? We got stuck in there for a good half-hour, and let me tell you, more than five minutes of jerky robots shouting "yo-ho" should be considered some sort of cruel and unusual punishment.

The film version, however, was neither cruel nor unusual. In fact, it was downright fun. It had looked awfully promising in the trailers: swordplay, cannons, rum, looting, Johnny Depp in makeup, Geoffrey Rush being evil, Orlando Bloom without the nancy-boy elf hairdo and the dark five-o'clock shadow, and a monkey. Again, no pie fights, but what more can you ask for?

(A little tangent here. Someday, I will review a movie that actually contains a pie fight, and there won't be enough doors to express my pleasure.)

Pirates opens ten years or so before the main action, with the new English governor (Jonathan Pryce) traveling to his Caribbean post in the company of his young daughter, Elizabeth. They encounter a pirated boat, if not the actual pirates themselves, and rescue one survivor, a young boy named Will who has a limited capacity for consciousness and a big, gold, pirate-y looking medallion around his neck. Fearing for her sleepy new friend's life, young Elizabeth pockets the medallion, lest he be thought a pirate himself.

Years later, Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) is a beautiful, much sought-after young lady of the gentry; the rescued Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) is an apprentice blacksmith; and the "I love you but I can't say anything about it" relationship between them is pretty noticeable right from the get-go.

Enter the pirates—both the good, and the bad.

First, we meet Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), a solitary pirate with no ship, no money, half a military garrison on his tail, and a whole lot of eyeliner. Shortly after that, Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) and the damned crew of the phantom ship The Black Pearl come out of the night to sack the city and carry off young Elizabeth—and her purloined medallion.

Let the adventure begin! Dear Old Dad-the-Governor and Elizabeth's would-be fiancée, the Commodore (Jack Davenport,) are hopeless, and practically resigned to her death. So courageous young Will must break Captain Jack out of jail and brave the Spanish Main to save her.

There's intrigue. There's excitement. There's a whole lot of waves. There are cutlasses, plank-walking, dishonesty, curses, betrayals, and, of course, gold.

Pirates of the Caribbean is truly a swashbuckler in every sense of the word. It's funnier than you expect it to be, and more violent than you can believe of a Disney flick, but since most of the injuries are sustained by men who are undead to start with, the blood factor is down. The skeletal pirates may scare littler kids, but maybe you can calm them by telling them that what looks like rotting flesh on the bones is really just turkey jerky colored by computer programs. If nothing else, it will cure them of that disgusting predilection for turkey jerky, a food I find far too humorous to even try to eat.

Curse of the Black Pearl is well deserving of at least three and three-quarter doors all on its own. The fact that Elizabeth actually passes out from a too-tight corset (an experience I wouldn't recommend, having once done it myself) brings a realism that earns another quarter-door, and I think that Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom should also get a quarter-door each, just for being hot and having swords.

Therefore, my final say on the matter is four and a half doors. It's fun, it's fast-paced, it's rowdy. I don't know if it's quite rollicking, but it's definitely timber-shivering, and it makes you want to give Mickey Mouse your money. And that's all Disney really wanted in the first place.