On Stranger Tides Review

[Emperor]

Leave it to the PIRATES franchise to plunder the last of its own remaining goodwill. In what will be overblown by many as “a disaster” or “a franchise killing event”, many of the folks behind the successful series have returned to make what amounts to your average, every day, run of the mill sequel. While there are no doubt a number of missteps here, ON STRANGER TIDES never commits the sin of being terrible; it merely, contrary to its own title, sails through all too familiar waters and squeezes out every last bit of personality it can from its characters before running aground on the shores of mediocrity. It is the first of the series that fans can easily skip without feeling like they’ve missed much, if anything, at all.

 

The series has painted itself into a corner, a fact its creators seem to acknowledge with the choices they’ve made in the film. Having consistently ramped up the levels of fantasy present in each installment, this film feels obligated to maintain its genre bending adventures by throwing in fantastic elements almost wholesale, regardless of what purpose those elements serve. There are zombies just for the sake of having them; a man can command the riggings of a ship to attack its crew; and Jack Sparrow once again has his magic McGuffin compass just to move the story along. Only a few of the elements feel natural at all and serve the story in any real way. And in this way, the series feels like it has actually lost its magic rather than having maintained it.

 

But the worst offense of the film is its insistence that Jack Sparrow is the protagonist. Jack Sparrow was never meant to be a protagonist. He is Coyote, Puck, Loki; the trickster that causes the leads of the story to go off into wildly different directions than they should, simply for his own amusement or gain. His narrative purpose is to cause adventure, not to go one. What made him so compelling was that he is a self-interested pirate who will screw over anyone to get what he wants, but is occasionally taken by feelings of guilt when he hoses someone truly pure, and then throws out that self-interest to help them out of the jam he’s gotten them into. He is fantastic in that role and Johnny Depp has crafted him into one of the truly great and instantly recognizable characters of our day that will no doubt go down in history as the bar by which other such characters are measured.

 

But he’s not a hero. Making him the focal point of the story means that we lose everything great about him, leaving only the impersonation and self-interest. He’s boring as the lead and you get the sense that he is acting only in a way that serves the story they were adapting to the screen.

 

What really drives this home is that the film has the prefect protagonist for a PIRATES film – a missionary, captured by Edward “Blackbeard” Teach and forced along on an adventure of which he wants no part. Sadly, this character is sorely neglected, left like a family dog permanently chained up in the backyard. Characters only speak to him when they have to and by the end, you could have cut him from the film completely and only have one narrative problem to solve. But he’s genuinely interesting. I would have loved to see the story of a holy man dragged ashore by pirates and exposed to faith questioning monsters and pagan rituals. What would a story about *that guy* be like when he ends up standing next to the legendary scourge of the seas Jack Sparrow? That would have been a movie worth seeing.

 

But this isn’t. It’s just there, feeling very much like the fifth or sixth book in a fantasy series only still kept alive by the author’s need to put food on the table when his other books don’t sell very well. If you are a diehard PIRATES fan, then you will see Jack Sparrow being Jack Sparrow, a number of your favorite side characters will make an appearance, and all the iconography you expect from the franchise will show up. There are some halfway decent action set pieces and a number of funny gags and one-liners. It is, for all intents and purposes, adequate popcorn fair. But nothing here will raise your pulse or make you hungry for a fifth installment. It simply exists and throws in enough interesting elements to keep your attention while you watch it.

 

I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around the hatred this is getting vomited on it – it never commits any cardinal sins or loses the audience with truly terrible choices. It’s not bad; it’s just the exact kind of fire and forget movie making we are used to spilling out on screens over the course of any given summer. And it’s worth skipping unless you’re just looking for something to pass the time on a Saturday afternoon.

 

But if you see it, see it in 2D. The 3D only exists to fleece you of a few dollars more and stick swords out over the heads of the audience once every 20 minutes. It’s not the worst I’ve seen, but it certainly is fairly worthless.

[Emperor]

This one has some slight spoilers...

 

These kinds of reviews are the most difficult to write. When it comes to a great movie, the words flow like a river. Same with really lousy films - it's easy when your dander is up and you want to take it out on the movie a little bit. But movies that just sit there, without any kind of care behind them (at least, that's the perception), a paint-by-numbers film - those aren't easy to write about. If the filmmakers didn't care enough to go beyond the call of duty and make something of quality (or at least competence), why should I care enough to write something about their film?

 

Beaks, and other reviewers around the Internet, seem righteously angry at PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES, and I understand their position. I can even agree with it. But for me, it's somehow worse to see something so devoid of ambition, so workmanlike, and watching it you know this film's an accountant's wet dream and you can see the money rolling in.

 

I've never been a huge fan of the PIRATES movies. I think the first one's good, and could have been great with some selective editing. The second and third are simply too much. I have no problem with films that have ambition, but it's a nonstop assault in those two films. I don't hate them - I think Davy Jones is a terrifically realized character, at least until the third film - but I feel no real need to revisit them.

 

At this point Johnny Depp can play Jack Sparrow in his sleep, and maybe that's the problem - in ON STRANGER TIDES he just seems bored. When the actor no longer cares about what they're trying to do in a film, well, I tune out as well, and by the time Sparrow does his escape in the streets of London from the King's chambers that sets the film's plot in motion - what motion there is, anyway - I no longer cared about Sparrow, his former girlfriend Angelica (Penelope Cruz), or the Fountain of Youth.

 

I could summarize the plot, but really, does it matter? Various parties try to reach the Fountain of Youth, including Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush, who at least looks halfway alive, but nowhere near the levels of the previous films), who is now a privateer in the King's navy, Blackbeard (Ian McShane) who is trying to stave off a prophecy that predicts his death, and the Spaniards, who have absolutely no motivation to get there at all. So we get what seems to be the most uninvolved chase in film history - a race to see who gets to the Fountain first, but you know how all these films turn out anyway, so why even invest in caring about the pursuit?

 

The rules regarding the Fountain are so needlessly convoluted - apparently you can't just drink the water, but you have to collect a tear from a mermaid, and use two magical chalices to gain the life of another. So we have a diversion to capture a mermaid, and... blah. I'm actually getting angrier at the film as I write this. There's more story with a mermaid and a missionary and a "romance" between the two which is about as tepid as it sounds. Again, there's nothing in the story that even comes close to being entertaining because nowhere in pre-production did anyone stop and think if any of these characters or situations were interesting enough to warrant paying attention to.

 

What can I say about Rob Marshall? Nothing. At least Gore Verbinski, even though I think he brought way too much to the plate (along with screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio), he still had ambition. Here, the script just lays there, flaccid, and Marshall's direction isn't much better. At least in CHICAGO he showed spark - here, there's none. The action scenes are bland and meaningless. Even the climactic battle at the Fountain has no point to it - without spoiling it, it makes no sense as it never even needed to happen. Since one party involved had an item necessary to do the Fountain ritual before losing it, once they gain the item again, they simply destroy it. Why didn't they destroy it when they had it originally if that was their intention in the first place? Ugh, this movie.

 

If you have to see this film, knock yourself out, but don't bother with the 3D, which is pointless. Other than characters shoving their swords at the screen, there's hardly any depth of field or use of the technology that justifies paying the extra money to see it that way.

 

It's funny, I started this review just feeling mediocre about the film and here at the end I'm pretty much full-on hating it. Use your own judgment, but as for myself, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES was a waste of my time and a waste of the filmmakers' energy. Avoid.

[Krakalakachkn]

I actually had somewhat medium hopes for this movie. Get rid of Orlando Bloom's mediocre acting, get rid of Keira Knightley's ravishing good looks (a travesty in my opinion), add the superb acting prowess of Ian McShane, add the looks and accent (ohhhh that accent) of Penelope Cruz, and I figured you'd have a decent attempt at a movie. At the very least it couldn't be as bad as Dead Man's Chest or At World's End.

 

This is disappointing news.

[Krakalakachkn]

Reuters reports that the latest installment "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" has, as of Tuesday and after less than a week of release, pulled in a whopping $415 million at the worldwide box office.

 

Though the film has slightly under performed domestically with $104.4 million thus far, the drop-off has been made back and then some by global audiences who can't get enough of Jack Sparrow - particularly in Russia and China.

 

Early estimates have the film taking in a $346.4 million worldwide opening weekend haul, making it the fourth biggest behind only "Spider-Man 3," "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and its immediate predecessor "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End".

 

 

 

 

Hot Damn!

[Majsju]

It is ok. Some cool moments, some medicore, but most of the time it is just a lukewarm Ok.

[Krakalakachkn]

How did you think it compared to 2 or 3?

[Majsju]

A bit below those. The story is better in 4, as it is a very straightforward Chase the treasure-story, wheras 2 and 3 was just...silly. But the execution...POTC has never been about making intelligent movies, it is the classic adventure with a good dose of humour. But much of that humour is missing from 4. What also bugged me is that much of the action takes place at night (and with 3D it gets even darker). So we don't even get the epic shots when they're out sailing. There is also a scene with really shitty CGI, that made me cringe.

 

At least Penelope Cruz is good, though they do something very annoying (and not very believable) with her character in the end. But that is not her fault.

[Krakalakachkn]

I would disagree with your comment inasmuch as I think the Curse of the Black Pearl was truly a good movie, very entertaining and well-made. The other two just ruined it.

 

How was Ian McShane as Blackbeard?

[Majsju]

Uhm, I never said anything about the first movie

 

McShane did a good job considering what he had to work with. Suffers a bit from sloppy writing, but just as with Cruz, that is hardly his fault.

[Krakalakachkn]

But the execution...POTC has never been about making intelligent movies

 

 

Sorry mate, I just assumed that's what you meant by that statement.

[Majsju]

But the execution...POTC has never been about making intelligent movies

 

 

Sorry mate, I just assumed that's what you meant by that statement.

 

Well, that comment was not meant as a negative thing. POTC are not about making intelligent movies, it is about making entertaining movies. And as such, the first one delivers, I was thouroughly entertained. The quality drops with every following movie, though i would still say they are all worth watching.

[Rufae]

Saw it this past weekend and almost walked out on it because it was actually kinda boring. The action scenes were flat, the acting bland (except some fun scenes with Depp). and almost wholly predictable. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I were a "die-hard fan" of the series, but for the casual moviegoer, it is a snooze.

[Feral]

Eh was watchable. One thing that really bugged me though is all the new actors. None of them had any comic skill at all. The missionary and the mermaid...that was all just so out of place in a PotC film. And the English King was just so over done he made me cringe.

[Maiden_Sedai]

I liked it. It wasn't the best of the films, but it was definitely a lot better than the 2nd one Dead Man's Chest, in my opinion.