Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

 

Nope, this isn't it. Of course, after a ridiculously successful trilogy they wanted to keep it all going, but fourth time wasn't the charm. 

Because this one is boring and tedious. Really: it's two hours long but after the first hour you'll feel as though four have passed already. And maybe the idea to focus on Jack Sparrow as main character wasn't so hot either. 

But first things first, savvy?

As was hinted at at the end of the third entry, now it's time to go and look for the Fountain of Youth. Jack has supposedly already been there, but bizarrely enough later on in this film he will have no clue where it is and simultaneously know perfectly well how everything works.

I guess someone fudged the script somewhere.

But the Spaniards are after the Fountain and this is something the British monarch cannot abide, so the race is on. Barbossa is now a privateer in the King's Navy and he heads out to beat the Spaniards to it, whilst Jack is on a ship captained by the dreaded Blackbeard, Edward Teach. He is the pirate all pirates fear. Jack got there because of the character played by Penelope Cruz. 

To be fair: it's easy to see how a straight male could be persuaded by the sultry looks of miss Cruz. But she turns out to be Blackbeard's daughter, which complicates matters a little. 

They also need a mermaid, or more specifically: a mermaid's tear in order for an ancient ritual to work where the chalices used to drink water from the Fountain take life from one person and give it to another and Blackbeard fears a one-legged man and Barbossa has only one leg and then there's Spaniards and...

Aaargh!

See what one of the problems is? This is just way too bloated. Too many things thrown at the wall, hoping something will stick and nothing does. They even threw in a romance of sorts between a mermaid and a young cleric because we didn't have enough characters we couldn't give a toss about already.

No really: this film is a mess. Things happen just because they need to happen, but there's no rhyme or reason to it. Not only that, but Jack Sparrow works best as a side character, not as the main focus. And perhaps most egregious of all, they shifted focus to the fantastical. Sure, there were plenty of fantastical things in the previous entries, but the swashbuckling adventure always came first. Here, it's an afterthought and the few fight scenes are shoddily shot and edited, making it hard to follow what exactly is happening. And where the previous entries had 'regular' pirates and people encounter magical things, now all of a sudden Blackbeard can use magic as well? What the fudge? 

Oh, and designers must have though it cool to have open fires on Blackbeard's ship, but seeing as those vessels were made of wood and used oodles of tar, this was a very, very stupid idea. That includes the flamethrowers on the front. Because why?

There are two bright spots in this film and those are Geoffrey Rush and Ian McShane. Rush is wonderful as Barbossa, who keeps on growing. And Ian McSane is a heavy hitter who is perfectly cast as the evil and suave Blackbeard. Penelope Cruz is very pretty, but she doesn't get a whole lot to do besides that unfortunately, which is a waste for an actress as talented as her. But I suppose she got paid handsomely. 

This is an entry you could easily skip, as it feels really disjointed and comes across as boring, in spite of a million things happening at once. But please do judge for yourselves.