LEGO Black Pearl has a perfectly cast, if a bit plain, crew of minifigures

LEGO Icons 10365 Captain Jack Sparrow’s Pirate Ship includes eight exclusive minifigures – but are they befitting of such an iconic ship?

There are eight exclusive minifigures in 10365 Captain Jack Sparrow’s Pirate Ship, some of which offer new designs on familiar characters, while three of which are characters making their minifigure debuts. We’ve reviewed the set as a whole for you here, but now want to zoom in on the minifigures in particular detail.

Captain Jack Sparrow is the star of the show: he made it into the name of the set, and his minifigure is easily the best of the lot. The detail on his face print blows us out of the water, if you’ll excuse the pun, even taking in details like eyeshadow under his eyes. The hair piece includes his braids and is appropriately thick and wild, and both his expressions capture that signature Captain Jack feel.

If we’re being picky, the olive skin tone on his face doesn’t quite match the section of chest visible through his shirt – although perhaps that’s just from time in the sun.

Once you finish gushing over Jack, there’s less to write home about many of the other minifigures, with limited details outside of Jack, Elizabeth, and Barbossa. While Jack is pretty much perfect, even Elizabeth and Barbossa have some areas for improvement.

Elizabeth has no printing on the sides of her skirt, leaving her looking a little janky when viewed from the side. That’s a shame, as the detailed printing on the front, back, and torso is impressively accurate to the film. While Will, her obvious counterpart, is also lacking leg printing, that’s made up for with an excellent face print, perfectly capturing Orlando Bloom’s youthful chiselled cheekbones and his long sideburns and facial hair.

In the case of Barbossa, the grizzled pirate doesn’t quite look grizzled enough. The printing on his face is accurate, from his bushy brows to his pockmarked visage, but that’s at odds with the polished clothing he wears. In The Curse of the Black Pearl, Barbossa is a man of the high seas. While there’s a plume in his hat, his shirt is frayed, his coat stained, and his hat has a few holes in it. None of that wear and tear is apparent in his minifigure, although it does show up in the other characters.

Speaking of the rest of the minifigures, there’s not a whole lot to say about Gibbs, Cotton, Anamaria, and Marty – but that’s perhaps more to do with the source material than anything else. These relatively background pirates don’t have the same lavish details as Captain Jack Sparrow might.

That leaves little to work with in their minifigure designs, where each of them is only really defined by their torso and face prints. Anamaria and Gibbs are the only ones to have a double face print, although that’s a practical issue with the short hair and hats the other two men sport.

Gibbs’ facial hair in particular leaves something to be desired. You can see what they were going for with trying to convey the uneven nature of his beard, but it leaves him looking scarred rather than bushy.

Regardless of the lack of details, what these characters do bring is some much-welcome pirate accessories. The torsos are perfect for those braving the high seas, and they all come with old-fashioned guns and swords for some proper swashbuckling action.

While you might have wanted more details on all the minifigures to match the level we see in Jack, especially at this price point of £299.99, there isn’t a whole lot extra in the source material to go on. Most of them do wear long cloaks and tunics to the knee that could have shown up in leg printing, but it’s something we can largely forgive for the appropriate diversity in torsos.

Once you see them in place on the fully-built ship, you’ll forget about the sometimes-lacking details. They perfectly match the atmosphere and are just enough to keep the ship looking populated, without being overcrowded and taking away from the build itself. When it comes to these minifigures, zooming out helps them fare a lot better.

All in all, the minifigures 10365 Captain Jack Sparrow’s Pirate Ship are appropriately chosen, and it’s great to see some lesser-known characters make an appearance in the set. There are still plenty more that could appear, with LEGO designer Mike Psiaki noting in an interview with LEGO Fan Media that Pintel and Ragetti were debated but ultimately left out, but that only gives us hope to see LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean thrive under the Icons banner, as LEGO The Lord of the Rings did.

LEGO Icons 10365 Captain Jack Sparrow’s Pirate Ship will be available to buy from September 12 for LEGO Insiders and from September 15 for everyone else, retailing at £299.99 / $379.99 / €329.99.

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