'Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides' - Movie Review

In 2003 audiences were caught completely off-guard by the rousing adventure "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl." The swashbuckling adventure catapulted Johnny Depp from off-kilter leading man to full blown A-list hero with his outlandish performance as Captain Jack Sparrow. Two sequels followed that featured bigger action and a deeper mythology to the series. While some fans debate over which of the sequels was more successful all agree that they didn't quite live up to the original film. Intent on recapturing that lost thrill "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" is a smaller scale story that the last two films and puts Jack front and center as the hero, no longer in glorified side-kick status. Does it manage to bring back that lost luster? In a word: no.

"Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" opens in London where Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) starts off his latest adventure by springing his previous first mate Gibbs (Kevin McNally) from prison. However he's captured for his trouble and the king of England wants Jack to lead an expedition to the Fountain of Youth before the Spanish manage to find it. Jack would be sailing under the command of his former rival Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) who is now working in the king's navy and minus a leg. Naturally working for the crown or sailing under Barbossa doesn't sit too well with Jack so he mounts and escape and sets out to start his own expedition. Unfortunately rather than captaining his own ship Jack instead finds himself serving on the dreaded Queen Anne's Revenge under the command of the legendary Blackbeard (Ian McShane.) Complicating matters is the fact that Blackbeard's first mate (Penelope Cruz) is an old flame of Jack's. It may take all of the tricky Captain Sparrow's cunning to make it out of this adventure alive thanks to such tricky obstacles as mermaids, zombies and voodoo dolls.

There are many problems that hold "On Stranger Tides" back from attaining its goal of recapturing the magic of the original "Pirates of the Caribbean" film. The biggest one is that for all the talk from producer Jerry Bruckheimer and others behind the film that this would be a more stripped down story it's still bloated with material that should have been cut. They may have cut back on the more convoluted double dealings and mythology of the "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" but there are many scenes and aspects that bulk the runtime and don't help the story. Sadly most of these are the action set pieces. Part of what made the original film such a fun film even at over two hours was that every action scene had a purpose and told the audience something. For example the first fight between Will Turner and Jack established that Will was a master sword fighter and that Jack fights dirty. But what does the extended escape scene at the opening of this new film tell the audience? Nothing they wouldn't already know, all it does is add another 15 minutes to the film that don't move anything forward. While it's important for Jack to escape and do it in a clever fashion there is no need for an extended chase scene. There are numerous scenes like this that either have no point to begin with or keep going long past when they made whatever point they had. It's not just the action scenes that are bloated; there are whole aspects of the film that have little purpose for being there. Take the Spanish for example. They're one more group out hunting for the Fountain of Youth but there are already three key people racing for it (Jack, Blackbeard and Barbossa) there's no need for a fourth. And the Spanish don't even do much. They pay off well at the end, but ultimately not enough to justify their having been there in the first place.

Beyond the bloated and needless sequences in the film there's a more fundamental problem: Jack doesn't work that well as the central hero. Jack is frankly too self serving to be primary hero, and that selfishness is too fundamental to his character for it to ever change. While he may not have been as interesting a character Will Turner grounded the film with his earnest nobility. Having somebody that fundamentally good helped set the roles of good and evil. Jack is too wishy washy, yes he may be more or less a decent person but his morals are clearly flexible and most of the time his problems are of his own making. Without a strong moral center the stakes are difficult to get invested in, because really none of these people deserve to get what they want. Oddly the filmmakers seem to have realized because they shoe-horn in an aggressively "good" person in the form of a missionary. He's meant to function as a substitute for Will Turner but audiences are asked to invest quite a bit into this character but are given almost no real reason to care about him. In fact for nearly every memorable character from the earlier films that doesn't return there is a new character that fits the same mold but doesn't work as well because it's obviously a stand in for the earlier character.

Even Blackbeard's ship is supernaturally controlled and empowered, rather like the Flying Dutchman of earlier films except this time without any explanation. While the series has always had supernatural elements they've had at least a passing explanation. Blackbeard controls his ship with his sword and it's never clear why. And again it's pointless except to just have a supernatural ship on the screen like there has always been. There were already ample mystical elements thanks to the Fountain and mermaids. Blackbeard practicing voodoo as he does would have been enough, and required no explanation. Alas the ship is made supernatural as well just to add one more action beat and retain one more recurring element of the series. Although speaking of Blackbeard's voodoo, one of the results is zombie pirates which makes the third variations on pirates who can't be killed so far in this film series. All this rehashing comes across as a desperate attempt to simply replicate the elements of the first film and hope they work as well. Sadly they just don't.

All of that said not everything in "On Stranger Tides" fails. On the rare occasions when Jack and Barbossa are in the same room the film soars. The history between these two characters and the chemistry between the actors make their scenes together endlessly entertaining. In fact Barbossa really has a better story going than Jack, as his personal quest for revenge is more engaging than Jack's very vague motivations. Jack himself is still charming and amusing, though admittedly without a straight man to play off of the shtick doesn't work quite as well as it has in the past. Ian McShane chews the scenery as Blackbeard, but he also sells the character right out of the gate and as a result it's one of the only new characters in the film that works well. There are sporadic moments throughout the film that manage to capture, albeit briefly, the thrills and fun of the original. However while these moments may remind audiences why they loved this series in the first place they are sadly fleeting.

Ultimately "On Stranger Tides" feels like little more than an attempt to keep a successful franchise going. While there's a certain merit in theory to returning to the smaller scale story of the original, after things went so big by "At World's End" the stakes here feel rather pedestrian. Johnny Depp has said he's open to returning to the character of Jack Sparrow again in the future. If there ever is another film in this series fans can only hope that the filmmakers can make it worth returning again. While opinions may vary on how successful it was at least "At World's End" tried to go out with a bang. This film doesn't even feel like they were trying for much more than a shrug.

Final Score: 2 out of 5