REVIEW - Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

PLOT: Jack Sparrow and Barbossa embark on a quest to find the elusive fountain of youth, only to discover that Blackbeard and his daughter are after it too.

REVIEW: Upon hearing the news of a fourth installment to the Pirates franchise, I got severely upset because I honestly don’t understand how anyone can stand the third film at all. There just was something about Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End that really irritated me, between the boring same-old act from every character, to Elizabeth becoming the pirate “queen”. After my first viewing of the second film I felt the same way as well, but upon a re-watch I decided that I like the second film quite a lot due to Bill Nighy and his underwater boat and crew under the name of Davy Jones. It gives the film exactly what the first film has and that’s a believable and fun antagonist to Jack Sparrow and the rest of the crew. When seeing the trailer for this fourth film, it seemed to display some of the qualities that the second film had and led me to believe this was going to be a somewhat decent return for Pirates. By no means did I expect to like this more than the first, but I had hope that it could compete with the quality of the second and unfortunately the trailer leaves nothing to look forward to. I felt like Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides was a complete rehash of the entire series with a bit of new characterization to change up the game, but it really doesn’t do enough at all in the department of originality. But of course the main attraction for this whole series returns for the third time to give us all what we want, and it’s that damn loveable and undefeated pirate Jack Sparrow.

Johnny Depp has returned to the role of Jack Sparrow for this film, and it’s no question why he continues to return to this role that has garnered him the most respect from a popular audience, even though it’s not his greatest role. Depp has a quality about him where is able to create a character from something as simple as a pirate, it’s only the beginning to what he creates, just as he did in Edward Scissorhands. Depp is a great character actor, and it’s always showed in the role of Jack Sparrow, however this film does nothing different than the previous films did. It could’ve possibly been a much better film had Sparrow had some new kind of situations to put himself into, and give the opportunity for some new type of humor. But it returns me to the fact that the film felt entirely like a flashback to the other films, in the sense that Jack Sparrow and others hardly returned to the peak of their arcs earlier in the series. Unfortunately Johnny Depp isn’t even the actor that bails this movie from being a complete failure, because even though Sparrow still drew laughter from me and the crowd, I hardly saw any humor reminiscent to the quality of that contained in the first or even second film. The actor who does save this film however, is one that I wouldn’t have considered to be in the running for the best part of the film, but again it comes back to the concept of originality.

What happens with the character of Barbossa in this movie really creates a new enough feeling character to draw a lot of attention and it’s really deserved. With Geoffrey Rush coming off of an Oscar-nominated performance in last year’s Best Picture The King’s Speech, it’s absolutely no surprise that he shines in his role far and beyond the rest. Barbossa has become part of the English elite, as in he is now a member of the cause, government, and royal army. It’s funny to Rush’s character completely sold out to the other side, and even though he has the heart of the pirate, he never resists the pleasures of serving the king. Rush really brings his A-game for this movie and it’s really his scenes and humor that kept me awake throughout the movie, because I wanted to see him on the screen as opposed to everyone else. Also in the film was Penelope Cruz, playing the female pirate to interest Jack Sparrow for the film and keep him in the game as far as romance is concerned. I really don’t see the need to have this character involved romantically with Sparrow, and I really think she would have been much better as a singular bad-ass girl pirate that was disinterested in Sparrow. Her performance is okay, but again it just can’t carry the film and doesn’t really help at all to give Jack Sparrow any kind of new gig.

There was so much in the film that I could just nitpick on and I’ll keep it to a minimum, but there was a particular character that caught my attention. On Black Beard’s boat, which is another character in the film that really fails to shine despite having great acting talent behind it, but there is a religious man tied up for believing in what he believes. After a particularly clever, but rare, exchange with Jack Sparrow and another boat crew member, he is introduced into the main storyline. At this point I got interested in the film, and it was where it peaked for me, because they did absolutely nothing with the character to please me. They try and tie him up in another romance in the film with a particular character that evokes so much meaning from this useless character that makes it even more of a question mark for me. Black Beard lived up to none of the other villains in the other films, and really despite his powers with the ship there really wasn’t much to be afraid of or feel for him. Davy Jones and Barbossa all had undeniable personalities that bled onto the screen from great acting, and for some reason Black Beard just flops in being relentless because his “evil moments” feel so rehearsed. I really don’t see why the film had to be 180 minutes long, bringing it to over two hours, which makes no sense when there’s nothing even added to the film to earn that.

The trailer showcases what should have been in the best in the movie, but honestly the trailer shows too much of it to leave nothing up to mystery when you’re watching the movie. It takes a good hour or so for the film to even get moving from the dead stop it places itself at after the endless sword-fighting and Jack Sparrow gags. When it finally gets to the meat of the film, you’ve seen it already and it almost makes all the addition of the cool pirate lore worthless. It is really cool to see mermaids added into the film especially as terrifyingly well portrayed they were, and I really wish they as character would have been utilized more efficiently. Also in the trailer there was mention of zombies, which hardly had any significance in the film. I’ve heard that this film felt the most Disney-like of them all, and the only reason I can agree with that is because it really feels like Disney didn’t have the brains to come up with anything new to bring to this franchise. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides does absolutely nothing to distinguish itself from the other films, and in fact during its final moments seemed to be extremely mirrored after the ending moments of the first film, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Fortunately I think with the coming weekend’s two huge releases, On Stranger Tides is going to flop hard and drop most of its audience because I really don’t feel like the buzz is strong enough. I’m doing my part in keeping people away from this film so hopefully we wouldn’t have to suffer through a fifth, but this franchise is such a strong one for Disney. After watching this film I felt just about as disappointed as I was after the third, and I really just don’t feel like it was money well spent on this Pirates addition. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides should have been part of a Buy Three, Get One free deal on buying the original trilogy, because it’s about all this new Pirate’s life is worth.

ACTING : ( 5 / 10 )

STORY : ( 4 / 10 )

EXECUTION : ( 2 / 10 )

POSTER : ( 6 / 10 )

AWESOME : ( 2 / 10 )

FINAL RATING : ( 4 / 10 )