You have to admit, it’s pretty amazing that a movie based off of an amusement park ride has made so much money. Over $2.67 billion dollars worldwide for the previous three films is nothing to shake a stick at. The latest installment, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, is directed by Rob Marshall (the previous three films were directed by Gore Verbinski) who’s no stranger (see how I did that) to big budget productions, two of his previous films being Chicago and Nine. He had big shoes to fill and was able to create something that feels less like a continuation and more like a stand-alone film.
This time the story lies around Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), a swaggering pirate who must lead a crew to the Fountain of Youth before anyone else does. The original writers of the series, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, took the series in a new direction by drawing inspiration from the book, On Stranger Tides, by Tim Powers. They did succeed in creating an original story, but it felt very choppy. Several of the characters at the beginning of the film were completely forgotten by the end and seemed completely unnecessary.
So let’s break down some other elements. As you may or may not care, the movie was actually shot in 3D. I was surprised to hear this because the movie was nothing special from a 3D perspective. From what I understand, their intention was for it to create richness to the film, but I took off my glasses from time to time and only the background was a bit fuzzy. I can only remember once during the film where something kind of popped out on the screen. Even some post-conversions I’ve seen were better than this. (**cough** Piranha 3D) It was a big waste of time and money in my opinion and only serves to drive up the ticket price after the last movie didn’t do as well as expected.
Swashbuckling. What’s funny is that I actually rewatched The Princess Bride this weekend and found their sword fighting scene to be more entertaining and believable. In any of the fight scenes in POTC: OST there is no element of danger and the scenes are very predictable. Barboosa (Geoffrey Rush) actually had a really cool idea with his sword, but it fell flat and didn’t live up to its potential.
The music. Ok. We get it. There’s a “theme” to these movies. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen any of the films and the music felt like it was exactly the same score. It almost felt like it overshadowed the action in some places. Totally overused.
There has to be some sort of romantic element (and it’s Disney), so it’ll be watered down and over-the-top. SPOILER At first I was sure it was going to be Jack and Angelica (Penelope Cruz) but that never seemed to go anywhere. Then popped up some young good-looking dude and I knew he’d come into play somehow. Sure enough, towards the end of the movie, he falls in love with a mermaid. I do applaud them for making the mermaids into villains, gave it a nice twist, but when it was introduced, I felt it was rushed and honestly, could have been another movie or a much bigger plot point. END SPOILER
Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow is nothing innovative, and he freely admits the character doesn’t change, he effects change around him. That’s the perfect summation, you won’t see anything new. Geoffrey Rush as Captain Barboosa is a welcome sight because he adds a likeability and charm to each scene. Ian McShane as Blackbeard does what he can, but for such a notorious pirate, he’s certainly quite boring and not at all scary. I chalk that up to the Disneyness. After all, you can’t have something too scary if you want to draw in the kiddies. Penelope Cruz as Angelica didn’t really add much to the story, but I guess they did need a woman in the cast to round it out and she fits the bill well.
It’s going to do well at the box office, there’s no doubt about that, but the numbers will be inflated by the 3D, so it will be difficult to compare to the others. It wasn’t awful. It was just in one ear and out the other so-to-speak. Also, if I hadn’t been sitting in a theater, I don’t think I would have gotten through it. Not only was each scene long, I almost had to remind myself what they were actually trying to accomplish by the end. I also think kids will be bored because even though there’s enough going on the screen action-wise, the story just drags on.
Rating: If you enjoyed the others, you will probably like this but it won’t blow you away. p.s. There is a short Easter egg after the film. 4/10
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