Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

The original Pirates of the Caribbean movie, The Curse of the Black Pearl, took Hollywood and audiences by surprise. Nobody expected much from a film based on a theme park attraction. And a successful pirate movie had not been made in many a year. But a clever script and a head turning performance by Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, resulted in a critical and commercial hit beyond all expectations.

A basic axiom in Hollywood is that a hugely successful movie immediately becomes a tent pole for an entire franchise and hence, The Pirates of the Caribbean series was born.

The first two sequels Dead Man's Chest and World's End were filmed back to back and are, in reality one film split in half. Neither film received the critical praise of the first movie but both went on to be big hits at the box office. When viewed individually the two sequels are confusing masses of multiple sub-plots and intertwining characters and neither film stands up to critical scrutiny.

But if you sat down for eight hours and watched all three in a row what you would have is an epic tale about the undying true love Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner, and their adventures with Captain Jack Sparrow. And this brings me to my point. In the first three movies Captain Jack was not the only star of the films. He shared screen time with Elizabeth and Will, Captain Barbossa and Davey Jones himself. Captain Jack is the catalyst for much that happens, but he is not the one who grows and changes during the film. It is not his story we are watching.

In the new film Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Captain Jack (Johnny Depp) is the star. the film follows his adventure to find the fountain of youth. But Captain Jack is fun and interesting in small doses. He is at his best when he is plotting and planning and making clever comments and asides as the action occurs around him. The problem with making a movie with Captain Jack Sparrow as the central character is that he does not grow or change. Captain Jack is who he is and the more we see of him the less interesting he becomes.

Johnny Depp still owns the role and his performance brings back all the same mannerisms and weirdness we loved. It's just that we are used to it by now. Penelope Cruz turns up as Angelica, an old flame of Jack's who just happens to be the daughter of Blackbeard the Pirate. Cruz and Depp have chemistry but their witty banter is nothing compared to the unspoken romance of Captain Jack and Elizabeth Swann (Kiera Knightly) in the original films.

Ian McShane takes on the role of Blackbeard the Pirate and he has some fun with it, but not enough. His reputation is that of the pirate that pirates fear, but except for his fire breathing ship (???) he does not come across all that bad. 

Geoffrey Rush returns as barbossa who is now a privateer in his majesty's navy. For his own reasons he is also chasing after Blackbeard. Rush too seems to be playing his character by memory. 

The movie opens with a rousing chase scene set in London that begins with Jack Sparrow having an audience with King George and ends with Captain Jack receiving a warning from his pirate father, Keith Richards. (Judi Dench also has a brief and funny cameo.)

The London set-up seems to promise an exciting action packed frolic, much like the first film, filled with an equal mixture of comedy, drama and action. Instead, once the main story begins, when all the characters are searching for the fountain of youth, the film settles into a dull pattern action, talk, talk, action, talk and never goes anywhere.The audience never really cares about the quest or why any of them are looking for the fountain. In fact Jack does not even seem to have a reason. 

The story itself is very straight forward and hence boring. In the other Pirate movies you were never quite sure what was going on but you were always able to follow along as events transpired. In the fourth film the inspired lunacy of director Gore Verbinski is replaced with the by the numbers story telling of director Rob Marshall. It seems to me that after putting all his razzle-dazzle in his film Chicago, director Marshall has never been able to add that "something extra" to any of his other films. Since Chicago his subsequent movies, Memoirs of a Geisha, Nine and now Pirates have all lacked energy that would give them life beyond their plot outlines. Of the four films On Stranger Tides is the shortest, but somehow it felt like the longest.

Pirates of the Caribbean is a fun summer popcorn movie and it's great to see Jack Sparrow back in action again, but I wish the director and writers had given him a more worthy adventure to pursue.

At The Movie House Rating **1/2 stars