Critics have pretty much buried this movie, they've given it a heavy slating it but I thought that was largely unfair. Yes, this is nothing more than a Bruckheimer cash-cow but still, if you ignore that fact and just watch the movie you’ll find it isn’t as bad as it’s been made out to be.
It follows the same swashbuckling formula of its predecessors and has just the right amount of humour to keep it going while the cast is decent enough to keep you interested. Penelope Cruz is the new love interest: Angelica, Geoffrey Rush returns as the legless Barbossa, Frank from Hot Rod (otherwise known as Ian McShane) is the new villain: Blackbeard, and of course Johnny Depp is back as the indispensable Jack Sparrow!
The story in a nutshell follows Jack in his search for his beloved Black Pearl, the ship that has served him so well throughout the series. Turns out somehow he’s lost it to Blackbeard who’s stored it inside a glass bottle along with that bloody annoying monkey. Jack sets off to find the Black Pearl but is pursued by the British who want the Fountain of Youth before the Spanish get to it. Who should be leading the Brits, but Barbossa who of course wants nothing to do with the Fountain, rather the score he has to settle for a lost limb, with you’ve guessed it Blackbeard. Blackbeard conveniently wants the fountain because there’s a prophecy that he’ll be killed by a man with no legs, I wonder who that could be.
Truth be told, this movie would be pretty rubbish without Johnny Depp, well all of the Pirates flicks would to be fair, so if he ever decides to call it a day with this franchise I think they’d do well to end it completely. He’s quite simply irreplaceable, without him this movie would be nothing but a damp dead Kraken.
That’s not to say the other characters are rubbish though, Barbossa is good as always but he’s only really at his best when bouncing off Jack Sparrow. Blackbeard, is also a decent villain who’s much better than the baddie in the third instalment but is admittedly not the best baddie ever seen. Unfortunately though that’s pretty much it, Angelica’s character turns out pretty weak and her motives are lame and the romance between her and Jack is also pretty transparent, you never really believe in it.
Compared to the last movie though this is an improvement. At World’s End was a pretty poor movie that wasn’t even a shadow of its former glory. It had Davy Jones in it and it was still terrible. Chow Yun Fat? No. And remember that bit where that woman grows really big?…urgh.
How people can say that the fourth movie is worse than the third I’ll never know. My only theory is that they’ve completely forgotten about the third and how bad it really was. The third one had Will and Elizabeth in it, this new one does not. Even if the romance in this new one suffers for it, surely that’s a good enough reason as to why the fourth is better!?
Okay, Penelope Cruz’s character is rather weak as is the romance between her and Sparrow and the dialogue is very shoddy, for example Ian McShane turning to the clergy boy and saying: “you fancy her!” Yes that’s just the rhetoric you’d expect from the fearsome Blackbeard! Last time I checked I’d come to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean film, not Hollyoaks the movie!
As I say, the story is nothing brilliant but it is varied enough to keep you interested. It’s filled with convenient plot devices as I mentioned earlier, such as Jack coincidentally meeting up with his father in a bar that leads to Angelica. It’s all obvious and predictable but it’s not that bad. So the story isn’t great, but did you expect it to be? And sure the characters aren’t quite as deep and interesting as you’d like but when have they ever been?
There are also the new mythical beings that are a bit hit and miss. The mermaids are a good addition even if they do end up weakly being used in a romance plot with the clergy boy. There are zombies too but they have little about them, they’re basically just big men, that’s it. You get the feeling that they’ve used all their aces; the Kraken’s dead so you can’t use that any more, so we’re left with zombie crews and some Spaniards. Great.
But with all that said it’s all made up for by the main draw, which is as ever, Captain Jack Sparrow. He’s funny, he’s witty, he’s charming, and he’s back on form. I thought in the third one he was overly silly and a bit boring, well saying that he wasn’t in it for very long to be fair to him. Another reason why this movie is better than the third! I laughed out loud a couple of times thanks to Jack Sparrow and all in all I enjoyed the movie thanks to him. It was entertaining, had good action scenes, good wit, great music from Hans Zimmer as always and a miniature monkey in a bottle.
You have to look at Stranger Tides like this: it’s a showcase of how entertaining Johnny Depp is. Just sit, watch, and enjoy him. This movie is hardly going to be the best summer blockbuster this year, but it's far from being the worst. I will say this though: considering how scraped the barrel is now, the fifth installment will probably be beyond terrible.
Final Verdict: 3 Stars. A flawed film kept interesting by Cap’n Jack.
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