WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Jungle Cruise, now available in theaters and on Disney+ Premier Access.
Jungle Cruise follows Lily (Emily Blunt), her brother MacGregor (Jack Whitehall) and their boat captain Frank (Dwayne Johnson) as they embark on a quest to discover a lost power. And along the way, they encounter plenty of threats, including some supernatural ones that follow in the footsteps of previous Disney villains.
Jungle Cruise introduces a new batch of cursed villains to the live-action Disney film based on a ride from the Disney Parks, only their curse is far worse than what Barbossa and his allies were forced to deal with in Pirates of the Caribbean.
Jungle Cruise is largely centered around the hunt for the Tree of Life. A powerful and mystical piece of fauna, it's said to possess rare petals that, when they bloom, have the capability to heal any wound or sickness. Legends have been spoken and shared about the tree for centuries, to the point where Aguirre (Édgar Ramírez) set out to the jungle hundreds of years ago, in search of the petals that could potentially save his sickly daughter. However, the journey brought him and his crew down the dangerous river and into treacherous waters, with many of them dying before they ever found the tribe that knew where the Tree was hidden. But when they did, the tribe accepted them with surprisingly open arms and hospitality.
While most of the crew was briefly at peace, Aguirre grew impatient and eventually attacked the chief -- demanding the location of the Tree of Life. Mortally wounding him and Francisco when he attempted to stop the attack, the men were cursed by the dying chief to forever be tied to the river. They do not age, they do not die, and they cannot get too far from the river. All attempts to return home were thwarted, and Francisco spent untold years being hunted down and killed by his former compatriots for his betrayal. Growing tired of this cycle, he lured the three remaining conquerors, including Aguirre, into a rocky cave. Removed from the river, they became one with the surrounding fauna and rocks. Meanwhile, Francisco built a town and lived alongside the river into the early 20th century and started going by the name Frank.
But the conquistadors share a surprising number of similarities with the undead pirate crew from Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. In that film, a similar curse had been afflicted on Barbossa and his crew after they claimed cursed gold. Although they gained immortality, their bodies were warped and ravaged by time. This makes them dangerous and terrifying foes, largely skeletal and unstoppable. Both Barbossa and Aguirre have grown to truly hate their curse, and long for the day they can be restored and feel an authentic connection to the world again. They even have connections to the heroes, with Barbossa and Jack Sparrow having been crewmates, while the hate between Frank and Aguirre is an undercurrent of their centuries-long conflict.
There are some changes to motivation, however, with Aguirre at least having a noble reason for wanting the mystical petals, instead of the more straightforward selfish actions of Barbossa and his fellow pirates. But their ultimate actions end in similar results. In fact, Aguirre's might be worse, considering Barbossa was only forced to deal with the curse for a few decades. But regardless of who has it worse, the villains of Jungle Cruise get to have a modern take on the same kind of curse that afflicted Disney villains almost twenty years ago, which gives the two films -- both tied by their origins in the Disney Parks -- an additional connection.
To see the connection between Pirate of the Caribbean and Disney's newest adaptation of a theme park ride\, Jungle Cruise is in theaters now and available through Disney+ Premier Access.