Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise includes its fair share of memorable, strange shenanigans.  Way back at the outset of the ride-based films, the primary antagonists were an undead crew that revealed their true, decaying forms under the glare of moonlight.  Three years later, Dead Man's Chest not only introduced us to an aquatically deformed Davey Jones, but also to the giant kraken that adhered to his every command.  At World's End brought our motley crew to – as the title implies – the seemingly end of both the physical and metaphysical world and into a conflict with the sea goddess, Calpyso.  With the bar of oddities set so high, you'd think that a film named On Stranger Tides directed by an Oscar nominee would signal that the Pirates franchise has taken a step into an even more epic and fantastical direction with its fourth installment.  If so, you'd have thought wrong.

Word on the street is that Jack Sparrow has come to London to recruit crew members for a new voyage.  This is all news, however, to the actual Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), who has returned to London to ensure the escape of his loyal first-mate, Gibbs (Kevin McNally), from a surefire hanging.  Thanks to a little malicious bribery, the "escape" lands Sparrow and Gibbs back in the custody of King George (Richard Griffiths) who covets the services of the wily pirate in order to reach the mythological Fountain of Youth before the Spanish.  King George has already enlisted the help of Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), who claims to have lost Sparrow's beloved Black Pearl – and one of his legs – on his path to trading in the pirate's life for a wig and allegiance to the crown. 

Not surprisingly, Sparrow has no interest in serving the pasty monarch and after a mildly elaborate escape choreographed around a pastry, he sets out to discover who's been posing as him and to what end.  The impostor turns out to be the lovely and dangerous Angelica (Penelope Cruz), a former love who's searching for the Fountain of Youth on behalf of her father, the pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane), whose tales of brutality are overshadowed only by his supernatural ability to literally command his ship, Queen Mary's Revenge.  With motives of his own and a desire to cover up his ignorance of the Fountain's specific location, Sparrow tags along, but with the Spanish setting off first and the English procuring Gibbs, Ponce de Leon's prize is anyone's to claim.

On paper, On Stranger Tides has all the makings of an exciting and engaging installment in the Piratest franchise, but in execution the film is really just a confirmation that the series is dead in the water.  The fatigue that had begun to show in At World's End has bloated in full-grown atrophy in On Stranger Tides and what results are some of the most boring 2+ hours you'll spend at the theater this year. 

On Stranger Tides is, of course, the first of the franchise missing Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom, and the fact that I found myself missing the two least charismatic actors in the series speaks volumes about both the other MIA big name, director Gore Verbinski, and his subpar replacement, Rob Marshall.  The director of choreography-heavy films Chicago and Nine, Marshall shows a surprisingly inadequacy when it comes to plotting and shooting the film's tired action scenes.  Long gone are the days of sword fights on top of runaway water wheels and canon battles across spinning maelstroms, replaced by tepid sparring matches and a final battle that fails to live up to the promise and mythology the filmmakers have attempted to hype up.

Marshall can't get all the blame though as the series' regular writers Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio haven't given the untested action director much to work with.  Similar to the problem with At World's End, On Stranger Tides is a convoluted mess of loyalties, motivations, and mythologies, all of which combine about as well as oil and water.  The new characters, despite the pedigree behind the actors cast to portray them, carry nowhere near the charm and intrigue as the characters they've replaced and come off as uninteresting and largely disposable.  Depp, despite his gravity and charisma, is expected but unable to carry the movie on his own because of the mediocrity surrounding him and without foils around him, the schtick of Captain Jack Sparrow isn't so cute and whimsical as it used to be. 

And what about the title – On Stranger Tides?  After a trilogy of films that gave us undead armies, a mythological creature, and lesser divinity, what's so strange about the fourth installment?  Mermaids.  That's it.  Oh, wait, I fibbed – mermaids and a pirate that controls the ropes and sails on his ship with a magical sword.  It seems as though after four movies and eight years, Elliot and Rossio have run out of ideas and are grasping at straws for back-stabbing plots and epic setups to thinly stretch around an already established mythology.  The writers have apparently tried to make up for this by having our characters talk as much about what they're doing and why as long as is possibly tolerable and then having them talk even more.  If that doesn't get you yawning enough, then wait a few minutes for the forgettable stunt work.

Though it carries the Pirates of the Caribbean name, On Stranger Tides is such a tepid entry into the series that I cringe for what is the inevitable future.  What shows up on screen isn't so much a sequel as much as a shallow imitator of what a Pirates movie should be, wearing all the clothes and saying all the words of the films that came before it, but lacking any soul or resonance.  At World's End may have been a mess, but it was an ambitious mess that fell apart when it stretched itself way too thin.  On Stranger Tides avoids that problem completely by not attempting to actually go anywhere.