Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides 2011

[5.0/10] Folks, I may have been wrong. When I critiqued the previous two Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, I zeroed in on what I thought was their main pathology. The two films tried to take what was a breezy, one-off lark, and turn it into a mythos-filled epic. My theory, and I’m still tempted to stand by it, is that the creative loaded more onto a simple and fun swashbuckling setup than I could bear, toppling it over like an off-balance schooner.

But Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the fourth entry in the increasingly unnecessary Pirates franchise, may have proven me misguided. It is, theoretically, exactly what I was asking for. It’s a mostly-standalone adventure, much lighter in tone than the prior two entries, focused on its own story rather than an extension of escalation of anything that came before. It also, however, feels like a giant waste of time.

Say what you will about the bloated, ungainly efforts to expand Curse of the Black Pearl into a tentpole series, but there were at least good ideas in both Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End. They may barely have had any time or space to breathe given how much the writers and director tried to pack in there, but with a different approach, you can see plenty of those ideas working and even thrilling the audience. On Stranger Tides offers no such saving graces. It is, instead, a two-hour exercise in filling time, with indifferent direction, barely-sketched characters, and little to draw your attention, let alone your care.

The only thing that makes the movie even mildly worth watching is Iain McShane as Captain Blackbeard. McShane channels his best Al Swearengen and injects more scene-chewing gravitas and sarcastic menace than this cinematic Tums capsule deserves. Likewise, Geoffrey Rush continues to be this franchise’s secret weapon, delivering more backstabbing glee and privateering joie de vivre than the film’s break out character than muster.

That’s one of Pirates 4 4’s biggest problems. Despite how much oxygen Jack Sparrow took up in the wake of Curse of the Black Pearl, the ensuing sequels at least had to try to service Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann as characters, in addition to too many side characters and supporting players. But unshackled from the continuing plot of the original, On Stranger Tides makes Jack the lead, and once again his shtick quickly becomes exhausting when it is thrust into the spotlight rather than made an enjoyable sideshow. No longer the amusing agent of chaos, Jack is relegated to being the noble (albeit rough around the edges) protagonist, sanding down his edges as a character while keeping the tics, which is not a fair trade.

The best the movie can offer in terms of rapscallionness is his playful banter with Angelica, the daughter of Blackbeard who can match wits and swords with Jack and has a history with the scoundrel. It’s a good idea, but Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz don’t have the chemistry to pull it off, and the movie’s scribes can’t write their way around that. Likewise, the film shoehorns in a secondary romance between a missionary and a mermaid that falls into the usual traps of insta-love, which is even worse considering how much of the plot the film hinges on their cross-shoreline dalliance.

But that’s the least of the film’s plotting problems. Once again, the same writers from the first three movies devolve into one big MacGuffin chase. It’s not enough that Jack, Barbosa, Blackbeard, Angelica, the English, the Spanish, and presumably a conga line of other perfunctory interested parties are after the fabled Fountain of Youth. There’s also the matter of locating two chalices that are apparently necessary to complete the rejuvenating ritual, and obtaining a mermaid’s tear, and obtaining the appropriate map and/or heading, amid other dull busywork that must be accomplished before we can get to the inevitable climactic skirmish.

The problem is that few, if any, of these quests are rooted in the characters’ motivations. Blackbeard wants to cheat death and Angelica wants to save him, but the show barely establishes either of those points. Likewise, Jack and Barbosa’s real driving urges aren’t revealed until most, if not all, of the action is over. So the progress that’s made toward the Fountain or the preceding bumps in the road don’t mean much of anything because they’re just window dressing for undifferentiated hijinks, not anything that reveals character or advances the story in an engaging way.

As nimble-on-its-feet as Curse of the Black Pearl was, it quickly made clear what each of the major characters wanted, which informed both the choices they made and the ways in which those decisions conflicted with one another. On Stranger Tides, by contrast, is content to just throw a bunch of disconnected scenes into the soup and call it a day.

The closest thing to a theme in the picture stems from the idea of who deserves to be saved. There’s a rote morality here, where the noble-minded characters are spared death’s kiss and the self-interested dastards reach their mortal ends despite their best efforts. It’s the closest thing the movie can offer to a twist or a meaningful journey, where decency and salvation comes from unexpected places, despite overwritten dialogue gilding the lily on that account.

The most disappointing aspect of the film, though, is its lack of excitement and spectacle. Don’t get me wrong, the movie throws in plenty of sword fights and escapes and even mermaid attacks. But aside from Blackbeard’s magic sword-induced coming out party, each of these sequences lacks the zing and verve of prior outings from the franchise. I found myself zoning out for most of them, with pedestrian direction and minimal imagination rendering them obligatory inserts to a dull story rather than blockbuster highlights.

On Stranger Tides just has nothing to offer. It’s not the interesting sort of bad or an ambitious failure; it’s just an aggressively dull film. Rather than utilizing the potential inherent in doing a one-off lark rather than an unnecessary franchise extension, Pirates 4 delivers something airless, charmless, and pointless. If this is what your nets reel in, especially after your fourth cast, then it’s best to just throw it back.