(dir. Rob Marshall, 2011)
Full disclosure: this franchise is something which, despite poor quality and confusing narratives, I cannot hate. No matter whether or not a Pirates film is good, I manage it thoroughly enjoy it. It's the hold the franchise has over me. Color me a biased film critic, matey. (Also, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl in all it's by-the-book and Disneyfied glory, is my favorite film of all time. Right around The Silence of the Lambs, Pulp Fiction, White Christmas, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind).
But this film, the fourth in an admittedly bloated series, was attempting to recapture the start-up magic of the original. It was without the second and third films' penchant for elaborate, complicated plots and subplots. But it never fully recaptured the feeling of the original. What was so grand about the first three was their undeniable epic scope; you felt like you were watching something that was a true adventure flick. But On Stranger Tides doesn't have that feeling. It's deflated.
This time around, Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp prancing around in the role that made him a star) is left yet again without a ship trying to locate the infamous Fountain of Youth. Along his way he meets villain turned ally turned privateer Hector Barbossa (a perfectly hammy Geoffrey Rush), an erstwhile paramour (Penelope Cruz), and the mysterious Blackbeard (Ian McShane doing what he can to save the role from disaster). Oh, and there's a replacement for Orlando Bloom's Will Turner in their somewhere and a mermaid. But best not to bother ourselves with talking about them in depth, the filmmakers certainly didn't.
