Awesome / Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

Awesome moments in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

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• Jack Sparrow sailing majestically into Port Royal, despite his boat sinking rapidly under him, and gaining the dock with one perfectly timed step. This is widely regarded as one of the best character entrances in recent cinema.
  • The fact that, in the span of two minutes, the film establishes everything about this character's personality and tone without even a single line of dialogue is awesome in and of itself.
• Jack rescuing Elizabeth from drowning:
  Jack: [to the British soldiers beside him] Will you be saving her then?
  Murtogg: I can't swim! [Mullroy shrugs helplessly]
  Jack: [takes off his weapons and hands them to Murtogg] Pride of the King's Navy, you are. Do not lose these!
• Norrington looks through Jack's belongings, which include a pistol with no additional shot or powder, a compass that doesn't work (so he thinks), but an actual steel sword at least.
  Norrington: You are without doubt the worst pirate I've ever heard of.
  Jack Sparrow: But you have heard of me.
• Jack escaping Norrington near the beginning. He grabs Elizabeth around the throat with his cuffs, holds her hostage while making Norrington hand her his belongings and then has her put them on him. Finally dressed he delivers the iconic line "you will always remember this as the day you almost caught Captain. Jack. Sparrow!" He then pushes Elizabeth toward them to distract them while grabbing a rope pulley and kicking it free, using it to pull himself up to the top, and then uses his cuffs on another rope as an improvised zipline to quickly get from the docks into town, and the chase is on.
• Jack's Batman Gambit to steal the Interceptor - he uses his sheer reputation as "Captain Jack Sparrow" to convince the skeleton crew manning the Dauntless to abandon ship and turn it over to him and Will, even though the captain points out there's no way two men could man her. When Norrington on the Interceptor notices, he orders his men to head for the Dauntless, as the Interceptor was already sea-ready to pursue the Black Pearl. While all of Norrington's men board the Dauntless to search for Jack and Will, they sneak onto the Interceptor and set sail!
  Jack: Thank you, Commodore, for getting us ready to make way! Would have had a hard time of it ourselves!
• Then, Norrington's reaction to the theft.
  Lt. Groves: With the wind at her stern we won't catch them!
  Norrington: I don't need to catch them, just get them in range of the Long Nines.
  Lt. Groves: ...We're to fire on our own ship, Sir?
  Norrington: I would rather see her at the bottom of the ocean, than in the hands of a pirate.
  • As they see Jack and Will taking the Dauntless, Norrington muses again "that's got to be the worst pirate I've ever seen". But after Jack tricks them into giving him the Interceptor and they try to give chase, they realize that Jack disabled their rudder chain before he left, leaving them unable to turn around and pursue. Then...
    Lt. Groves: That's got to be the best pirate I've ever seen!
    Norrington: So it would seem.
• When both Jack and Barbossa have been made immortal by the curse:
  Jack: That's interesting. [Grinning] Couldn't resist, mate.
  
  Barbossa: So, what now, Jack Sparrow? Are we to be two immortals locked in an epic battle until Judgment Day and the trumpets sound?
  Jack: Or you could surrender.
  • The resulting duel features the epic main theme playing as Jack and Barbossa duel in the cave, passing repeatedly in and out of moonlight and seamlessly transforming between their human and skeletal forms.
  • And then later on, in the same battle, in less than sixty seconds, Jack sees Will and Elizabeth finish off the last of the pirates, slices his palm open on his sword, throws the bloody coin to Will, and then JUST as Barbossa aims his gun at Elizabeth, Jack fires his single shot into Barbossa's chest right before Will drops the final coin into the chest.
    Barbossa: Ten years you carry that pistol... And now you waste your shot.
    Will: He didn't waste it.
  • The cold, steely glare from Jack completely makes this scene.
• Commodore Norrington, when Jack Sparrow asks him how he can forfeit the prestige he'd get by capturing the Black Pearl. "By remembering that I serve others, Mr. Sparrow, not only myself." And Jack has no response. At all. Yes, the strait-laced Royal Navy man beat Jack Sparrow himself in a verbal fencing match.
• Admittedly it didn't work, but Elizabeth and Will coming up with ideas to escape from the pursuing Pearl. Using ocean geography, ditching any possible weight, and a surprise attack to try to gain the advantage, it shows that these two aren't quite The Load as two civilians lacking the years of experience that the pirate characters have really should be.
  • Summed up best when Anamaria calls them both "daft" and Mr. Gibbs, a wicked gleam in his eye, replies "Daft like Jack!"
• The crew of the Interceptor putting up a damned good fight against the cursed crew. They failed, but points for trying, especially with a cursed crew five times their size. Making this even sweeter is the fact that, historically, there have been incidents when a brig (a ship of the Interceptor's class) have taken on ships as big as the Pearl - and won! Examples include the capture of HMS ''Kent'' and the duel between HMS Speedy and El Gamo. Had the Pearl not had a virtually invincible crew (and maybe if hers hadn't thrown the ammo into the sea) the Interceptor might very well have gotten the better of their opponents!
• Barbossa standing under the falling mast, while other pirates scramble out of the way around him.
• The British sailors and Royal Marines holding their own against the undead skeletons, despite having no means to kill them, until the curse is broken and then the pirates immediately surrender as know they'd be slaughtered immediately if continuing to fight without the benefit of immortality.
• One of the film's last lines, and one that sums up Jack perfectly: "Now... bring me that horizon."
• Will's attempt to set Jack free at the end. Their flawless teamwork completely makes the scene.
• Governor Swann's battle with the still-animate severed skeletal hand during the climactic fight sequence.
• "Gents... take a walk."
• Elizabeth shows a lot of raw nerve in her response to Barbossa's instruction that she dine with him, considering that, at the time, she has no reason to think that she won't simply be chucked overboard for refusing:
  Elizabeth: You may tell the captain that I am disinclined to acquiesce to his request.
  • During the dinner she slips a knife away to arm herself, and pulls it on Barbossa when he's done. And she isn't just waving it around, she stabs him in the chest. Barbossa, being cursed, No Sells it in his own awesome moment.
    Barbossa: I'm curious — after killing me, what is it you're planning on doing next?
  • She was showing a whole lot of nerve from the moment she was brought aboard the Pearl. It's more understated awesome, but when she threatened to drop the gold coin into the ocean, it's likely she also unintentionally reinforced the idea that she was of pirate blood. After all, she was thinking much like a pirate: "if they're gonna act like it's worthless, then let's see what happens when I almost drop it." A very gutsy way to call someone's bluff.
    Elizabeth: Well, I suppose if it really is worthless, there's no sense in me keeping it. [loosens her grip on the medallion, almost dropping it overboard]
    [Barbossa and his crew all start]
    Barbossa: No!
    Elizabeth: [smirks]
• Barbossa's dinner with Elizabeth is considered a crowning moment of the film in general. The atmosphere, the story of the cursed gold, the acting of Geoffrey Rush as he tells Elizabeth the story, and finally Barbossa telling Elizabeth why they've taken her captive.
  Barbossa: There is one way we can end our curse. All the scattered pieces of the Aztec gold must be restored, and the blood repaid. Thanks to ye, we have the final piece."
  Elizabeth: ...And the blood to be repaid?
  Barbossa: Ah, see, that's why there's no sense to be killing ye. Yet.
• Pintel and Ragetti's reaction to being Out-Gambitted by Jack's crew:
  Pintel: They're stealing our ship!
  Ragetti: Bloody pirates!
• Barbossa's crew has had it with Barbossa and bring up every reason they have to actually mutiny against him. Barbossa merely draws his sword.
  Barbossa: If any coward here dares challenge me, let him speak!
  Everyone: (Doesn't speak, nor move a muscle against him).
• As pictured, Will and Jack's sword fight in the blacksmith's shop. From Jack briefly humoring Will and acting slightly like an Evil Mentor as they begin to duel, Will being good enough to fight a veteran pirate on even footing, locking the door with a sword, Will being able to Dual Wield, Jack holding his own with one sword to Will's two, to fighting among the rafters. And the only reason Jack won was because he cheated, drawing a gun at the last second. Though he doesn't seem too bothered by that.
  Will: You cheated!
  Jack: Pirate.
• Despite being tied up and literally only seconds after she thought she was going to be sacrificed, Elizabeth doesn't lose her cool when her blood doesn't break the curse, as she knew it wouldn't. Barbossa has a Villainous Breakdown, demanding to know if her father was William Turner. Elizabeth fixes him with her best shit-eating grin and defiantly says "no". No doubt she's trying to remind him of his Loophole Abuse in not taking her back to shore (him thinking hers was the blood they needed to break the curse) - and that he kidnapped her All for Nothing. And when Will rescues her, she thinks to take the medallion with them just to screw with the pirates.
• Elizabeth also rescues the entire crew of the Black Pearl singlehandedly. She knocks out Jack the Monkey and drops him below to distract Pintel and Regetti, quickly freeing the others from their cages while the pirates run up to the deck.
  • And even when the pirates refuse to help her, she still goes to the Isla de Muerta all on her own to do what she can. Hell, she rows herself there in a dingy.
  • And how does she pull Big Damn Heroes? Interrupting one pirate's taunt that he's going to show Will "the meaning of pain".
    Elizabeth: You like pain?
    Pirate turns around to get whacked in the head by what appears to be a golden stair banister.
    Elizabeth: Try wearing a corset.
• Commodore Norrington's finest hour. Charging into battle against a horde of undying pirates, without the least hesitation. And at the end, as the pirates drop their weapons in the biggest Oh, Crap! of the film, Norrington calmly declares, in impeccable Stiff Upper Lip fashion, with only the slightest smile to intimate his triumph,
  Norrington: The ship is ours, gentlemen.
• The fact that Barbossa is a pragmatic villain. He could kill everyone on every ship he finds... but then who would tell the stories? He always leaves one survivor to spread the story, to increase his own terror.

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