Review

Review Date: 22-May-11
Spoiler Rating: Low
Juju Judgment: Junk

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

The original Pirates of the Caribbean had the dubious honor of being inspired by an amusement park ride, yet this unlikely seed brought forth an enjoyable movie. The latest Pirates of the Caribbean has the dubious honor of having been written to generate an amusement park ride — or so it seems to the ticket-buying observer — and there is nothing enjoyable about it. The flick consists of too many scenes of lame dialogue stuffed between too many scenes of lame action which make one desperately nostalgic for Errol Flynn. Among the Spaniards and Englishmen and brigands and new characters and returning characters and utterly superfluous zombies, there's no good guy or bad guy, nor even an obvious star. The man who made the franchise popular, Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow, gets lost in the shuffle as an observer instead of a protagonist. According to Entertainment Weekly (May 13, 2011), "Depp exercised increased authority over the film … to avoid some of the swollen and muddied story lines that critics felt waterlogged the last two movies." Says the star, "I felt it was very important to eliminate as many complications as possible." Having seen the movie one can only wonder who the heck spiked his rum.

The plot barely warrants description. It involves a number of parties from Europe who all happen to be in search of the Fountain of Youth. Chief among the returnees is Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), a former high-seas rival of Jack Sparrow who is now working for the British king. In the newcomer crowd are the infamous Blackbeard (Ian McShane) and his first mate/daughter (Penélope Cruz), who was once Jack's paramour. The most that can be said for them is that they both look great in pirate wear. Then there's a missionary who falls in love with a mermaid. This trivial piece of the story is apparently meant to appease the teen demographic that might miss the romance between Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley in the initial trilogy. Although it's just as likely that the young lovers are on hand because Disney envisions a Soul Searcher's Slide and Mermaid's Pool as part of a future park attraction.

Copyright © 2011 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.