Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - Review

Alright its official! We have our first dud of the summer movie season! It's really too bad, because the summer was off to a great start with the awesome Thor and the funny Bridesmaids. Now we enter sequel territory, approaching the familiar turf (or seas maybe?) of the once promising Pirates of the Caribbean series. I enjoyed the first movie. While it wasn't substantially better than your typical summer blockbuster, it had a bit of an edge thanks to some exciting action scenes, fun characters, and a memorable performance from the great Johnny Depp. The two sequels that followed, while visually striking, were far inferior. They weren't awful, but due in part to poor screenwriting and an over-reliance on visual effects, neither could rise above the level of mediocrity. One thing I can say about 2 and 3, however, is that they were still much better than the series' most recent incarnation. Just how bad is On Stranger Tides??? Lets set the sails for a disappointing adventure.

If you remember the ending to the last Pirates movie, At World's End, the eccentric Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) acquired a map that would lead him to the fabled Fountain of Youth. Sparrow is determined to find the fountain, but unfortunately he's not alone. Jack runs into a former fling of his named Angelica (Penelope Cruz), the first-mate and daughter to the infamous Pirate Blackbeard, both of whom seek the Fountain. Also racing for the Fountain is the former Black Pearl captain Barbarossa, now a one-legged ship captain for the King's Royal Navy. With time as a factor, and bloodthirsty pirates racing for eternal life, much hangs in the balance...

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is one of those movies that has so many problems, that I really don't know where to start. I suppose the story is as good as place as any. In short... it's awful. The story itself is decent enough, a group of pirates go on an adventure in search of the Fountain of Youth. Okay, you can make a good action movie out of that. It doesn't work, however, when you remove most of the enjoyable characters from the previous movies in favor of flat and uninteresting new characters, rewrite most of the personalities' of the few returning figures, add a ridiculous Paganism vs Christianity subplot, and write a script with a laundry list of plot-holes, poor pacing, and inconsistencies. On Stranger Tides is shorter than At World's End, but the plot is so poorly constructed that it moves at a snails pace. What a miserable execution of what should have been a fairly straightforward story.

On Stranger Tides features a few returning characters (Sparrow, Gibbs, and Barbossa) but most of the characters are brand new. The villain is the notorious pirate Blackbeard, played by Ian Mcshane. Penelope Cruz stars as Blackbeard's daughter and Jack's former fling Angelica. There's also a priest named Phillip (Sam Clafin) and a mermaid named Syrena (Astrid Berges-Frisbey). Depp once again plays Jack Sparrow, and while he doesn't give a bad performance per se, he's clearly just phoning in his performance. The same can be said for Geoffrey Rush as Barbossa, whose character has been rewritten so thoroughly that he bears only a slight resemblance to the character in the previous flicks. Cruz holds herself fairly well as Angelica, and while she showcases more charisma than her male counterparts, her character is so flat that she doesn't even come close to saving the movie.

The rest of the cast is just plain awful. Ian McShane is easily the weakest villain in the whole series. On top of his character being dull and uninteresting, he clearly had no interest in giving a decent performance, and just falls flat. Sam Clafin's character (the priest Phillip) had absolutely no relevance to the plot except to be a half-assed love interest to the mermaid. While Syrena the mermaid at least contributed to the plot, the actors who portrayed these two characters were awkward, stale, and had absolutely no chemistry together. What a terrible waste, this cast could have been so much better.

If there's one thing a summer blockbuster like Pirates of the Caribbean should be able to deliver on, it would be the action. I figured, if nothing else, I would have gotten a few memorable stunts or sword fights out the flick, but nope. Even though the last two Pirates movies weren't that good, they at least had a few decent action sequences. I haven't seen the sequels in years, but I still vividly remember the epic all Pirate brawl in At World's End, or that lengthy sword fight on the rolling wheel in Dead Man's Chest. It's been only a few days since I've seen On Stranger Tides, and already my recollection of the movie is beginning to slip my mind. The worst part is that there were numerous set-ups for potentially great and epic battles, but few of them are realized. Blackbeard wields a magic sword that allows him to perform all kinds of crazy acts. Also, his ship even has flamethrowers on the front. Does he ever use them in battle??? No, he doesn't! He uses them in like one or two scenes, and never in any meaningful or interesting way.

At this point, it didn't even surprise me that visual appeal was lackluster too. This wasn't the worst cgi I've ever seen, but it doesn't even hold a candle to the effects from the previous three movies. Remember how cool the effects on Davy Jones were in the last two. Okay, I admit that the over-reliance on CGI did more harm than good to the last two movies, but at least they were well-done. Here, none of the effects are even close to convincing. The mermaids in particular looked pretty awful. While the cinematography had a few decent shots, for the most part it wasn't particularly engaging. There really wasn't much of a sense of composition, and the action wasn't framed in any memorable way. Crappy cg aside, the movie didn't look that bad, but there was nothing about it that I'm going to remember a week from now.

A Pirates movie with the fresh perspective of a new director seemed like a decent idea, but clearly Rob Marshall wasn't up to this one. The worst thing about On Stranger Tides... it's BORING! Okay, some of the sword fights were passable I suppose and there were a handful of decent stunts, but nothing redeemed what didn't work in this movie. The only thing that was kind of "so-bad-it's good" were the mermaids that show up halfway through. It turns out, these mermaids spout fangs and like to eat intruding sailors. It's stupid yes, but these sort of "vampire mermaids" were the only memorable thing to come out of this movie. Of course, right after their scene, the movie went back to being dull and uninteresting.

Overall, this movie sucked! It's too early to call this the worst of the summer, especially considering there's a Michael Bay film on the horizon, but it wouldn't surprise me if it would end up being the worst. It's nothing more than a paycheck for the actors and a cash-grab for the studio. Don't bother seeing it.

My Score: 1.5 out of 5!