Johnny Depp’s unhinged anti-hero Jack Sparrow may be the most beloved character from the Pirates of the Caribbean series, but he’s also the worst sword fighter among the main characters. Released in 2003, Gore Verbinski’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was the second big-budget adaptation of a ride released by Disney Studios that year, coming after the Eddie Murphy vehicle The Haunted Mansion had disappointed both critics and audiences.
With swashbuckling adventures being a dead genre in the eight years following the expensive failure of 1995’s Cutthroat Island, it seemed inevitable Pirates of the Caribbean would also sink at the box office. Instead, The Curse of the Black Pearl and the following Pirates of the Caribbean sequels were a huge hit with audiences, with the series having grossed billions. The original’s balance of horror, comedy, and fast-paced action led to a surprisingly warm critical reception, but the secret weapon of the series was Johnny Depp’s campy Captain Jack Sparrow.
A jaunty ant-ihero, Captain Jack was a more unhinged and amoral brand of leading man than blockbuster audiences were used to, and Depp’s performance made the character an icon of swashbuckling cinema overnight. While the later Pirates of the Caribbean movies may have struggled to recapture the first film’s light tone thanks to their increasingly knotty plotting, Depp’s Jack Sparrow remained a highlight throughout the films. What made this achievement all the more impressive is that according to the screenwriters of The Curse of the Black Pearl, Sparrow is the weakest of the film’s sword fighters and survives entirely via guile and quick wit.
In the commentary for the first Pirates of the Caribbean, the creators argue that Jack is the least accomplished of the movie’s sword fighters. In fact, Jack ranks behind Captain Barbossa, Will Turner, and Commander Norrington, with an edge over only Elizabeth - who at that point in the series had never swung a blade before the events of Curse of the Black Pearl. The reasoning behind this is that Jack has never developed formal sword fighting skills because he is a pragmatist who relies on quick thinking and trickery rather than training. This is reaffirmed in Dead Man’s Chest when he loses a duel to the military man Norrington and relies on guile to escape death.
The creators have a point in regards to Jack's lack of finesse or skill, since Will had been granted an opportunity to work extensively with swords while training as a blacksmith and Norrington had military experience. Barbossa’s lack of Jack’s quick wit means the pirate must rely on actual swordplay skills more regularly than his erstwhile shipmate. It’s a clever touch for the Pirates of the Caribbean series' central anti-hero to be a less adept swordsman than he seems, and one which evidences the sort of extensive backstory work that went into producing The Curse of the Black Pearl.