Movie Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

In the 4th installment of the action/adventure series, “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides”, Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) is reunited with an old lover: a feisty pirate named Angelica (Penelope Cruz). He catches her impersonating him in order to build a crew and mount an expedition in search of the Fountain of Youth. After being taken prisoner by her father, the evil pirate Captain Blackbeard, Jack is forced to guide the pirates to the location of the Fountain. Unbeknownst to them, there is a rival group, led by Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), who are looking to capture Blackbeard and bring him to justice. Along the way there are adventures involving zombies, mermaids, and the Spanish army, who are also looking for the Fountain.

The original “Pirates of the Caribbean” was one of the great entertainments of the last decade! A pirate movie in which the pirates had to return a treasure (because it was cursed), instead of taking it, was a refreshing twist on the pirate movie genre, which had walked the plank a few years earlier with the box office disaster “Cutthroat Island.” In addition, there were also great actors like Depp & Rush willing to lend their respectable acting crafts to a big-budget Disney movie produced by mega Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer (“Crimson Tide”, Armageddon”, & “Black Hawk Down”), which gave the movie an even classier edge (despite being inspired by a Disneyland theme park ride.) After the astonishing success of “Pirates”, it was inevitable that there would be sequels. The sequels, while not as good as the original, still had their moments and now we get the 4th movie, which is, admittedly, the weakest entry in the series. Having said that, in its own harmless B movie way, I kind of enjoyed it.

A significant reason why I enjoyed it was Depp’s performance as Jack Sparrow, arguably one of the most popular movie characters of the last 8 years (so good he received an Oscar nomination for the 1st one.) Sparrow is the kind of hero with far more personality & humor than most modern action movie heroes, and Depp still seems to enjoy playing him. Also fun is Geoffrey Rush, who continues to enjoy himself as he chews the scenery with real affection as Barbossa. There are also some new characters this time. Cruz brings plenty of fetch & fight to her role (she was also pregnant when she shot her scenes), and it’s interesting to see Depp & Cruz as lovers again (the last time was in 2001’s electrifying drama “Blow.”) Also very good is Ian McShane as Blackbeard. He brings a truly menacing presence to the legendary pirate, but one of this movies great failings is that it doesn’t make much use of him. After he is established early on, he is saddled as another supporting character and consequently keeps the movie light on a having a good antagonistic force.

This brings me to my biggest problem with the movie: there doesn't seem to be any real stakes for finding the Fountain of Youth. Sure, everyone has their motives, but none of them really creates enough momentum to keep the story engaging. Instead, I found myself entertained mostly by individual scenes involving the characters, rather than being too caught up in the plot. There is plenty of action to be sure; some well choreographed sword fights, precipitous leaps off cliffs, and an opening chase involving horses, carriages, and a funny cameo by Keith Richards, who utters one of the movies best lines ("does this face look like its been to the Fountain of Youth"?) My absolute favorite action sequence, though, involves a suspenseful attempt to capture a mermaid. This turns into a sexy, but scary, sequence in which a group of pirates are ambushed by mermaids who make Ursella in "The Little Mermaid" look like Daryll Hannah in "Splash." It’s the only action sequence in the movie where there appears to be any real threat to the characters, which is another reason why it works so well.

Director Rob Marshall ("Chicago") fills in for Gore Verbinski, who directed the first three “Pirates” films, and he does a competent job. The movie looks very good, mostly because he chose to shoot much of it on real locations in Hawaii & Puerto Rico. He doesn’t quite have the knack for strong imaginative visuals that Verbinski has (see “Rango” for a more recent example of Verbinski’s brilliance), but he fills in nicely and keeps the tone light & fun. It is also a nice touch that he chose to shoot the movie in 3D, rather than post-convert it later. The 3D is is good, mostly because it’s noticeable, unlike most of the post-converted cash-ins we’ve seen post “Avatar.” There is a cool spatial depth between the foregrounds & backgrounds (vines in the jungle literally seem to hang right in front of your face) and there are even a few “sword-in-the-eye” moments (but the movie wisely doesn’t overuse them.) The drawback to the 3D is that the darker scenes are harder to make out because of the tinted 3D glasses. This is a repeating problem with 3D glasses and the most common complaint I've heard from fellow moviegoers & critics.

Overall, despite its many flaws, I enjoyed the new “Pirates." However, one of the more unforgivable flaws involves a love story between one of Blackbeard’s pirates & a mermaid. Every time this subplot reared it’s misshapen head the movie dragged to a complete stop. The entire time I kept asking: why would these two fall in love? They have absolutely no conversations of any depth beyond “are you all right?” I guess the man just wanted to get it on with a mermaid. Maybe my problem was with the actor who played the young pirate; he plays a fairly bland character while surrounded by far more colorful pirates who would've eaten this man for breakfast had this been the real thing! However, despite all of that, I had a good enough time, once again, in the company of Jack Sparrow & Barbossa, as well as most of the new cast of characters. Also, a special shout-out to composer Hans Zimmer who, once again, elevates all of the visuals with his amazing musical themes, old & new (his Blackbeard theme, in particular, stands out as my favorite of his new ones. Sample it on Itunes.)

Movie Theater Experience:

I saw “Pirates” at the midnight sneak preview on Thursday, May 19th. It was a lot of fun! My friends Matt & Tonny came dressed as pirates and they looked very cool. Overall, despite the projectionist starting the wrong movie (the mighty THOR almost intervened), it was a good experience. However, Marcus Theaters have just implemented a new policy in which all future midnight sneak previews must be reserved seating. Meaning, if you want to see the movie while sitting next to your friends, you’d better all buy your tickets at the same time! I am still not sure how I feel about reserved seating in movie theaters; on the one hand, it is nice to know you can show up whenever you want and still be assured a good seat. On the other hand, what if your reserved seat ends up right in front of the obnoxious person who feels the need to vocally share their every observation of the movie with everyone around them? All I can say is then the theater best be handing out blow-dart guns tipped with a sleeping agent.

Have you seen "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" yet? If so, what did you think?