“PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES” My rating: C
137 minutes | PG-13
“On Stranger Tides,” the fourth entry in Disney’s phenomenally profitable “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, is at least an improvement over the last two sequels.
It’s still not a particularly good movie (though it remains hugely impressive from a technical standpoint) but at least it didn’t make me want to pound a handspike into my forehead.
“Pirates” 2 and 3 were runaround movies in which the principal players would first run over here, then run over there without a whole lot of reason. Basically director Gore Verbinski was mounting special effects extravaganzas in which plot and characters were a distant afterthought.
Now helmed by Rob Marshall (who followed up on his smash “Chicago” with the dismal “Memoirs of a Giesha” and “Nine” and badly needs a commercial hit), the franchise has jettisoned all those confusing ghostly trappings and given us a more or less coherent story held together by swordfights, rope swinging, gallumping chases and a couple of new faces: Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane.
In essence it sends Johnny Depp’s astonishingly fey Jack Sparrow on a race to find the fountain of youth.
The British are after the prize and have commissioned former pirate Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) to locate it for King George. The Spanish want it as well.
And finally there’s the notorious buccaneer Blackbeard (McShane, delivering some welcome sardonic gruffness), who believes he will die unless he drinks the life-restoring waters.
Sparrow becomes a hand on Blackbeard’s ship and immediately resumes his love-hate relationship with old flame Angelica (Cruz, looking just fine in a leather bustier), whom he learns is Blackbeard’s daughter.
Series regulars Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom are AWOL this time around (look for cameos by Judy Dench, Richard Griffiths and Keith Richards), but there’s a romantic subplot involving a captive mermaid (Astrid Berges-Frisbey) and a handsome missionary (Sam Claflin).
All this adds up to…well, not much. We’re not expected to actually care about these cartoonish characters. And dramatically “Tides” is a tepid affair.
That leaves the series’ goofy sense of humor. But even that’s underwhelming. The Sparrow-Angelica verbal sparring could have had some of the wit and bite of “My Girl Friday” or some other madcap classic, but the best the writers (there are four of them) could come up with is some worn-out bickering peppered with nautical cliches.
The star, of course, is Depp, who in Jack Sparrow has created one of the screen’s truly memorable comic characters. But even an actor of Depp’s range and creativity cannot do much with a script that refuses to let Sparrow change. He is here exactly the same character he was in the original “Pirates.” He doesn’t grow. He doesn’t learn. He lacks all introspection.
We’ve seen it all before.
Of the film’s many set pieces the best is a nighttime attack by mermaids, seductive beauties who lure sailors into lustful reveries and then drag them to their deaths, bursting from the water to yank the humans from their boats. These ladies are like bigger versions of those jumping Asian carp.
And Marshall’s use of 3-D is effective without being too in-your-face. It’s not quite “Avatar” quality, but it’s close.
| Robert W. Butler
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