The facebook and twitter reviews were on both ends of the spectrum. Pirates 4 was amazing, and they went back to see it twice. On the other end, people were vowing to not see another Pirates movie and wishing for those two and a half hours of their lives back. With such a spread I was excited to get in there and make my own opinion. To give a bit of context, I am not a pirate head! I saw the first three movies, and enjoyed them. The first one the most, and the third one had a cool way of bringing the most convoluted story full circle. I do enjoy the look and feel of the storytelling, along with the interesting characters, but I am not stuck on it. This allows me to be objective as there are some movie franchises where it is tougher for me to do that, argghh.
After watching Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, I still feel very much the same way. I loved the look and feel of the movie, and the interesting characters involved. While Johnny Depp turned in a good performance as Jack Sparrow, and a good bit of the old characters were back for the latest romp on the high seas, those characters felt a bit played out to me. I was actually more interested in the peripheral characters we did not really get to find out about. Why was there a thirteen year old kid on this pirate ship, and how did he become such a good fighter. Why was this missionary stuck on the ship, and strung up in the air. I wish we got to learn a bit more about these characters instead of traveling down the same old path. Stranger Tides also featured some fun cameos with Dame Judy Dench making a short appearance, and Richard Griffiths playing a hilarious King George.
One saving grace was how quickly the producers got to the story, and how the film took an interesting twist. Usually with these later sequels it takes a while to get going as we need to get the familiar characters left in ‘happily ever after’ into a new conflict and story. Tides did not have that problem, similar and new battle lines were drawn quickly and naturally which led right into the story. I love the idea of the world in a time when everyone believed in the supernatural lurking around the corner, then seeing it actually exist.
The killer for me in this film was the ending. Everything seemed to magically fall in line to bring Jack Sparrow to a happy conclusion. Once the film arrived at the final scene, it all seemed very predictable. Which made me kind of sad, but with the Pirates films being extremely convoluted and nonsensical could be a direct response at its most recent critiques. Everything just seemed a little to cliché to me, especially the cheesy call back to the Disney song, A Pirates Life for me. While I did not like Johnny’s line there, I did very much appreciate his shout out to improvisation!
If you are going into the film expecting to love it, you most likely will. If you are on the edge, you might want to stay home. If you are looking for a fun summer blockbuster to eat popcorn to, and just recognize it as an over the top not so serious ride, then this film is it. While the story seemed a bit played out, there were some really cool features which reeled me right back in: the pirate ships in bottles, Blackbeard’s ability to control his ship, and the way they got into the fountain of youth, even if it resembled the secret cavern from movie one. AKA there were several moments when I leaned to my friend and said, “that was cool.” While I enjoyed the movie, I probably won’t watch it when it comes to Netflix! 2 ½ stars out of 5
