Okay, so after bailing from school ( don't worry people, it was legal,) I went to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, the fourth in the series. Called On Stranger Tides it is indeed a study in whimsicality and boundary stretching. The film starts off with the hero, Capt. Jack Sparrow ( Johnny Depp) impersonating a court official to free Jack Sparrow. Wait, what? No, you read that right, Capt. Jack's name has been stolen. Mr. Gibbs, under the name of Jack Sparrow, is being tried for piracy. Escaping with the aid of the real Jack, Gibbs and ( real) Jack proceed to commiserate. Turns out, Mr. Gibbs is not the only one using Jack's name. A ship purported to be looking for crew supposedly has Jack captaining it. After a series of escapades in which he somehow fights himself, Jack is hurled face first into the Queen Anne's Revenge captained by none other than Blackbeard. Edward Teach. Most Badassy of Badass Pirates. Who's first mate and daughter is, incidentally, Angelica ( Penelope Cruz) the women Jack seduced and then dumped ages ago.,The whole movie centers around how all of the factions are looking for the Fountain of Youth, supposedly discovered by Ponce De Leon, and now needs to be rediscovered. The movie trundles along, having fun with itself, but ultimately it takes a while to the point. There are mermaids, and missionary, and casual mention of zombies. The mermaids are unabashedly simply eye candy for the male viewers- yet still remains a Disney Family movie buy the strategic placement of hair, shirts, arms and water. For all that, its a decent movie. We get to see Capt. Jack at his greatest- he's not doing this for personal gain, he's doing it because, just maybe, he does have feelings for someone other than himself. He has no plan in mind except to figure out who's impersonating him, and put a stop to it. Then he seems to actually care about a person, and it's nice to see feelings poke their head out of his shell.
Now for the part where I dish on what I don't like. First off, the Ship Queen Anne's Revenge. I mean, I'm all gung ho for badass vessels as the next guy, but this isn't a ship. Its a monstrosity. I use even that word lightly. The proportions are astronomically wrong, and it has magical abilities. Now I know that purists are saying " Ben, that's part of the Story telling Ethos! You can't mess it up, suspend disbelief!" To that, I say- No. The aft castle is incredibly out of proportion, the ship has a color of red that looks added on in CGI, it can magically be controlled somehow, and it has honest-to-god flamethrowers for Christ's sake! I love in the Pirates movie to this day the idea that physics don't really apply to the ships in the films. Underwater ship? No problem! Rolling ships? Sure! Ships with unheard of weapons at the time? Pile them on!
Another thing is that sometimes the actions seems unfocused, and sort of a vessel for getting to the next scene of Jack talking with Angelica. The mutiny scene, in particular, strikes me as odd. After discussing what they know about Blackbeard ( nothing much) and his habits ( lesser still) they arbitrarily decide to mutiny. True, they sit down at the table with the express purpose of discussing mutiny, but then its kinda like they sit around at the table on Saturday night. " Hey, wanna mutiny? Possibly overthrow the captain" " Sure, why not, I have nothing better to do. " That is a typical scene which just seems- rushed.
The next thing is, there aren't enough supporting characters to make this enjoyable. In the previous ones, everyone had a story. All the pirates gathered together- with different motives, but at least there was someone there. I particularly miss Missirs Ragattei and Pintel. They provided a nice bit of comic relief and humanized pirates- they're just average schlubs trying to make it as pirates. Pintel looked like he had potential as a captain in the last movie, yet sadly both of these are missing from the movie. They are replaced by a minstrel type character named Smush, or something like that. It's a poor replacement for the fat and skinny guy.
Finally, the last thing that is missing from the storyline is credibility. Credibility was always something that didn't really concern the pirate universe- if it happened, it happened. This one stretches credibility past the breaking point. Capturing ships in bottles? One tear of a mermaid being necessary? A ship suspended in air where the slightest touch could set it off?
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