Gore Verbinski has a short, but fascinating filmography compared to the average big-name director, and his movies run a wide gamut of quality. Most famous for the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Gore Verbinski’s work spans all sorts of genres, from similar adventure films to spooky psychological horror movies and slice-of-life dramas. It’s interesting to see how his varied films stack up against one another, considering just how different they can be.
Gore Verbinski hasn’t released a film in almost a decade, with 2016’s A Cure for Wellness being his last cinematic endeavor. That may be changing soon thanks to Verbinski’s first movie in years, the upcoming film Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, which will center on a man who travels back in time to form a world-saving team out of the patrons of an L.A. diner. Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die will fit right in among Verbinski’s quirky, offbeat, and exciting films of varying degrees of success.
10
The Lone Ranger
Couldn’t recapture the Pirates magic
One of Verbinski’s worst box office flops, and perhaps part of the reason the esteemed creative hasn’t helmed a film in years, The Lone Ranger is perhaps the biggest dud in the director’s career. The movie is a classic action-adventure romp through the old west, starring Johnny Depp as Tonto and Armie Hammer as the тιтular masked cowboy. The Lone Ranger being Verbinski’s worst film is a testament to his creativity, if anything, still featuring some enjoyable action setpieces and decent enough chemistry between the dual leads.
Even beyond this elephant in the room, the dreadful pacing prevents The Lone Ranger from being the Western version of Pirates of the Caribbean it was clearly trying to be.
That being said, the film is one of Disney’s biggest financial flops for a good reason. Dragging the narrative down is the frame story centered on Depp’s narration as Tonto, a casting choice which was rightfully criticized thanks to Depp’s dubious claims of Native American ancestry supposedly allowing him to play the stereotypical caricature. Even beyond this elephant in the room, the dreadful pacing prevents The Lone Ranger from being the Western version of Pirates of the Caribbean it was clearly trying to be.
9
A Cure For Wellness
A bizarre mess of a thriller
A Cure for Wellness truly emphasizes Verbinski’s affinity for the strange, stringing together an utterly incomprehensible psychological thriller that shocks for all the wrong reasons. The story focuses on a young corporate ladder-climber, played by Dane DeHaan, who is tasked with retrieving his company’s CEO from a mysterious wellness retreat center in the Swiss Alps. After a nasty car crash, DeHaan’s character finds himself a resident of the place, and slowly uncovers its ghastly secrets.
A Cure for Wellness might narratively be a worse movie than The Lone Ranger, but it earns some watchability for how entertainingly absurd the answers to its mysteries become. The truth involves a nonsensical mix of immortality, Mission Impossible-style disguise masks, eels, magic water, and professional gaslighting. At least Verbinski’s flair for the visual shines front and center, almost distracting from the jumbled twists and turns of the plot.
8
The Mexican
Indulges itself just a hair too long
While most of Gore Verbinski’s films tend to lean on the fantastical or audacious, The Mexican is just a bit more grounded as a traditional crime drama. The film stars Brad Pitt as a small-time criminal tasked with crossing the border into Mexico in order to retrieve a mysterious cursed pistol, referred to as “The Mexican”. Meanwhile, his girlfriend, played by Julia Roberts, undergoes her own brushes with the wrong side of the law as she attempts to move to Las Vegas out of frustration with her lover’s criminal enterprises.
The Mexican certainly has some original ideas on display, but its dragged down by its brutally-slow 123-minute runtime, quickly burning through any established goodwill.
James Gandolfini is excellent as a threatening hitman, but the film isn’t even one of The Sopranos star’s best movies. The Mexican was also a tad disingenuous with its advertising, disappointing those excited for Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts to star opposite one another in a fraught relationship, only to keep them apart for most of the film.
7
Mouse Hunt
A quirky bit of slapstick comedy
For being Gore Verbinski’s first feature-length release, Mouse Hunt is certainly a hilarious outlier in the esteemed name’s creative output. The quirky late 90s comedy centers on a pair of bumbling brothers who inherit a decrepit mansion from their late father, a wealthy string magnate. While attempting to fix up the place, the two become embroiled in a bitter war of extermination with a mouse living in the manor, leading to all sorts of slapstick hilarity.
It’s easy to write Mouse Hunt off as one big live-action episode of Tom & Jerry, low-brow entertainment that nevertheless does its job. But the film also inserts a poignant message regarding family, fatherly relationships, and forgiveness amid the cartoonish chaos in what little story it does have. Certainly nothing mind-blowing, Mouse Hunt works as an entertaining bit of good fun to pᴀss the time.
6
The Weather Man
One of Nicolas Cage’s better performances
For the most part, Nicolas Cage is known for his audacious over-the-top performances in action and horror movies like Face/Off, Con Air, and Mandy. It’s easy to dismiss Cage as a gimmicky actor who isn’t in on his own joke, but films like The Weather Man prove that Nicolas Cage is indeed a very capable performer. The movie posits Cage as a Chicago weather forecaster going through a mid-life crisis, despite his impending promotion.
It’s clear that the straightforward drama isn’t where Verbinski truly succeeds, but the film works just fine as a meditative character study with a dry sense of black comedy to boot.
Even more so than The Mexican, The Weather Man is by far the most subdued and down-to-earth film in Verbinski’s entire filmography, making Cage’s casting even more interesting. It’s clear that the straightforward drama isn’t where Verbinski truly succeeds, but the film works just fine as a meditative character study with a dry sense of black comedy to boot. Even if it isn’t one of Nic Cage’s best films, The Weather Man is solidly middle-of-the-pack for Verbinski.
5
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
A shaky conclusion to a brilliant trilogy
It’s quite difficult to determine which of the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels falls just short in Verbinski’s filmography, but Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End just barely loses out. The last Pirates of the Caribbean movie, At World’s End picks up where the cliffhanger ending of ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Man’s Chest left off. As Jack is rescued from beyond the grave by his intrepid crew, Davy Jones and the British Navy attempt to consolidate their vice grip on the world’s oceans, stopped only by the alliance of the pirate lords.
It’s easy to see why Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End is the least beloved of the initial trilogy, being far more political with focuses on the pirate lords and the long-term goals of both major villains. That being said, there’s still plenty to appreciate here, from the genius supernatural elements of Verbinski’s mythologized version of the Earth’s oceans to the entertaining scheming of the double and triple-crossing protagonists, who all have their own agendas. It’s a shame Verbinski’s other two Pirates movies remain so unfairly underrated.
4
Pirates of the Caribbean: ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Man’s Chest
A sorely overlooked blockbuster of epic proportions
Although the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels don’t get the respect they deserve, ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Man’s Chest is honestly incredibly close to being just as good as the first film. Here, the slimy, tentacled villain of Davy Jones is introduced for the first time, the captain of the Flying Dutchman cursed to collect briny souls for eternity. When he comes to collect on a long-overdue bargain between himself and Jack Sparrow, everyone’s lives are put in mortal danger.
The CGI of Pirates of the Caribbean: ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Man’s Chest is absolutely stunning, looking better than most major blockbusters released today. The film somehow manages to entertainingly juggle a complicated web of lies and deception between many characters, punctuating the drama with genius action sequences such as the cannibal escape or the waterwheel swordfight. Ahead of its time yet unfairly admonished, the worst sin of Pirates of the Caribbean: ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Man’s Chest is giving the characters with the thickest accents the responsibility of explaining complicated Pirates lore.
3
Rango
Proved the worth of animation in storytelling
One of the most unique Westerns ever made, Rango is a shining jewel in Gore Verbinski’s filmography. The animated cowboy epic stars Johnny Depp once more as the тιтular chameleon, a household pet who imagines himself as an actor. When a car accident strands Rango in the Mojave Desert, he quickly takes on a nasty case of imposter syndrome by lying his way into the position of Sheriff in the town of Dirt. Before long, he discovers a sinister conspiracy behind the town’s decade-long drought.
Though Rango is Verbinski’s only fully-animated film, the director made the decision to have the voice actors completely act-out each scene in person for use as a reference, and the effort certainly doesn’t go unnoticed. The film is both hilarious and genuinely exciting, with Bill Nighy returning from the Pirates of the Caribbean series to lend his voice to the effortlessly cool villain Rattlesnake Jake. If it weren’t for a few moments of Nickelodeon-mandated gross-out humor and a tired “liar revealed” arc, Rango could easily be Verbinski’s best movie.
2
The Ring
A jump scare of quality horror in Verbinski’s filmography
It’s rare that American remakes of foreign horror stories work out well, but Gore Verbinski’s The Ring was good enough to inspire a whole generation of scary movies that failed to recapture the same magic. Based off the Japanese hit Ringu, The Ring tells a similar story of an investigative journalist tasked by her grieving sister with uncovering the truth behind her daughter’s death, seemingly caused by an urban legend about a cursed videotape. The curse turns out to be all too real as the macabre tale of Samara is slowly uncovered.
The Ring manages to inspire the same terror of the original classic while adding more than a simple cultural translation. Its contributions to the mythos of the TV-crawling killer ghost are well-founded, and Verbinski’s command of quality jump scares and an overarching sense of dread make it surprising he doesn’t do more horror movies.
1
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl
Perhaps the single greatest adventure movie ever made
The phenomenal blockbuster that started it all, no one could have guessed that a film based on a theme park ride could reach such levels of cultural appeal. The first Pirates of the Caribbean movie is nothing short of legendary, creating an all-time great performance with Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow. The first adventure in Sparrow’s journey sees him come face-to-face with the unᴅᴇᴀᴅ crew who mutinied against him, ᴅᴇᴀᴅ-set on finding a cure to their morbid curse brought about by stealing Aztec gold.
Even those who disparage the efficacy of the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels hold reverence for The Curse of the Black Pearl. The interplay between Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, and Keira Knightley is nothing short of breathtaking, and the action sequences pair with Verbinski’s patented slapstick humor like a fine wine. Add in Geoffrey Rush’s Barbarossa, who was good enough to shoehorn in to the last film, and it’s clear that Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is easily Gore Verbinski‘s magnum opus.
