Pirates (2005)

Pirates and porn. Were two subjects ever destined to be more delightfully intertwined than them? Especially at a time – the mid-2000s – when it really felt like the United States couldn’t get enough of either of them. The XXX market was still booming, and devouring ever greater slices of the erotic video/DVD and rental markets, and what the naked ladies and thrusting loins didn’t sew up, the first two Pirates of the Caribbean movies did. If ever there was an invitation to print money, it was a big budget coupling of America’s two latest, greatest sweethearts.

Enter director Ali Joone, XXX producers Digital Playground and Adam & Eve, and a cast headed by Jesse Jane, Carmen Luvana, Janine Lindemulder, Devon, Jenaveve Jolie, and Evan Stone… and when we say big budget (the highest ever lavished on an adult movie to that time, in the region of a million bucks), they even shot the thing on a real live ship, a Florida based replica of HMS Bounty.And as for plotting; it’s a rare movie that can survive being released in both the intended XXX format, and as a less racey version with all the sex cut out… and an even rarer one that can survive the splicing. Pirates succeeded, and ran out at the end of 2005 in the knowledge that it was already the most profitable adult movie of all time, and a lot of peoples’ choice for the best one ever made.

Okay, I wouldn’t go that far. But the fact is, there’s a lot to like about Pirates, beginning with the fact that the sets and script really are as good as you’d hope they’d be; the acting and dialogue are on a similar par, and the storyline does work. Indeed, bucking the traditional scheme of things, a sequel (Pirates II – Stagnetti’s Revenge) appeared in 2008, and was just as much fun as the original. And better than the last couple of entries into the Caribbean franchise.

So, what is the fuss all about? Shot in high def, with lavish special effects, the movie opens on the high seas in 1763, with Captain Edward Reynolds (Stone) heroically hunting pirates – an ambition, sadly, that nobody seems to think he can fulfill. Only First Officer Jules (the lovely Jesse Jane) seems to take him at all seriously, and his buffoonery only becomes more evident once his ship encounters the notorious Victor Spagnetti (played with deliciously over-the-top mania by Tommy Gunn).

One of Reynold’s passengers (Carmen Luvana) is kidnapped… treasure is mentioned… and what follows is as much a homage to the great swashbuckling epics of days gone by (and their most famous modern day successor) as it is an excuse for more or less every guy in the cast to wave his pork sword around, and every girl on the set to – insert your own bio-piratical simile here – as Reynolds and his surprisingly tiny crew set out in pursuit of the evil Stagnetti. And while one could agree that the 129 minute running time does outstay its welcome in places, still the plot is coherent enough that it readily survives the 20-or-so minute sex scenes that interrupt the story telling. Which, again, is something that a lot of other modern adult movies completely fail to sustain.

Loaded down with awards at the end of the year, and loaded down with bonus features on DVD, Pirates is not that most elusive of XXX grails… a porn film that everyone can watch and adore. It is, however, one of that select few that actually deserve the kind of fair appraisal that most adult flicks seem hellbent on avoiding. And until the day that Keira Knightley and Johnny Depp get their kit off for the Caribbean cameras, it’s got the best looking cast of cut throats you could ever hope to see humping.