MOVIE REVIEW: Pirates of the Caribbean: ON STRANGER TIDES

I'm a big fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy. Despite the unnecessary length and crowded story lines, I definitely argue that the way the characters were woven and balanced into said story was enough to make the movies very entertaining. Also the caliber of actors, Bill Nighy, Geoffery Rush, Chow-Yun Fat; just to name a few brought a real ferocity to their roles. The end of the third movie, titled, At World's End, concludes with Capt. Jack going after the fountain of youth.

This brings us to On Stranger Tides, which to be honest really doesn't make any kind of sense. It might as well have been called Pirates of the Caribbean: Fountain of Youth. From the preview, this movie looked like a slam dunk; Jack Sparrow is our main character and a breath of new characters are introduced. Sounds like a fresh exciting start, right?

I remember reading articles that Disney executives didn't really know how to quite take Johnny Depp's creation of Sparrow and were really worried people might not get it. But three movies later, the eyeliner, deadpan stares and those dreadlocks have solidified him as one of the most popular characters in movie history. It's truly amazing to see Depp back in his signature character in On Stranger Tides, but I'll be honest something is really missing. Depp makes his regular quips here and there but I feel like throughout the entire movie Depp is trying to find the character again and its kinda uncomfortable.

Penelope Cruz plays Angelica, the daughter of legendary pirate Blackbeard and former lover of Sparrow. Now, while her exchanges with Sparrow are meant to be clever and hold tons of comedic innuendo, their playful banter quickly outruns its course and gets really boring. Ian McShane, who portrays Blackbeard is also really underused here, while torching someone to death numerous times was a real mood changer and kind of cool in this movie; that was really the only real "Wow" factor I got from this character in the Pirates cannon of villain's.

New director Rob Marshall does a nice job at setting that "Pirates tone", but a staple that is lost here in this fourth installment are those grand and well choreographed pirate ship battles that were a treat to behold in the original trilogy. In On Stranger Tides we spend alot of time on land and with being on land we are now subject to watch our favorite water based characters in the same old "modern like" action sequences that I'm almost sure I've seen before in the Renny Harlin directed pirate movie Cutthroat Island. This might be a cause of the lower budget on this movie but even still you are making a movie about PIRATES!!!

On Stranger Tides doesn't really try and set itself apart from the previous three movies. Its a movie that goes through to motions and takes its audience for granted mainly because they've added a few new characters and we've seen three movies already, why not a fourth. There are even certain set pieces and fights in this movie that are almost exact replicas of encounters in the previous movies; Lazy.

If your a fan of the Pirates movies, nothing I can say, can sway you from seeing this one but if I can impart any advice its to be smart and catch a matinee.

Savvy?
Bobby