Review from The Patriot Resource:
With the release of the Hollywood film, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, the History Channel has taken the opportunity to premier its own presentation on pirates with True Caribbean Pirates. Like many of the History Channel's recent presentations, True Caribbean Pirates is heavily influenced by theatrical filmmaking as opposed to the documentary style.
In an interesting contrast, the narration continually breaks down many of the larger-than-life myths about pirates while the dramatizations play up many of those same myths. The experts and scholars interviewed for the presentation are also mostly entertaining and even have some flair of their own.
The presentation is loaded with animated maps that demonstrate the region's politics as well as important voyages made by various parties. The visual effects with the ships are of a surprising high quality. The filmmakes chose to use quick-cuts and shaky camera work. Presumably this was done to hide the production values on the live-action sequences in which use only a handful of men to recreate events that involved hundreds. The actors are given a lot of dialogue and it's hard to tell if it is the actors or the director that results in bits of overacting.
The presentation is well-done and entertaining while dispelling many of the well-known myths concerning pirates. If you are looking for good acting, go watch the Hollywood film. However, if you are looking for some facts (instead of fictions and myths), then overlook the somewhat marginal acting and check out this History Channel presentation.
True Caribbean Pirates @ The History Channel
Check Listing for air times.
Related Items Available at eBay - Scroll for additional items
TV Documentaries: