What Indiana Jones 4 should have been!

Rating: 8/10 (23 May 2011)

Gore Verbinski did an excellent job in re-creating The Ring for American audiences. He works well in dark surreal worlds, which worked well for the first Pirates of the Caribbean film. It's a classic, one of a kind action/adventure with the dark tones of a horror film.
Dead Man's Chest had a plot neither children or stoners could follow. It was an exhausting wait to get to the action sequences and then, when they did happen, it was so over-the-top, all believability, and therefore all invested suspense, was lost. You found yourself laughing at the film, not with it.
At World's End takes a turn for the serious and gets much darker. Much too dark for the kids who Disney sold the first two films to. As an adult, it's good twisted fun at the beginning but that soon fades out with the drama that comes with being the end of a trilogy.
Now, with a new director and some new characters mixed with the old, we have a new film in the Pirates of the Caribbean series, On Stranger Tides.
First, On Stranger Tides never gets any more strange than the last film but it is a whole hell of a lot better! Rob Marshal has shown here the balance a film needs to be fun for children without insulting the intelligence of the rest of the audience, in both action and comedy. The action stays in the "fun" zone, best compared to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, all things that happen outside of known physics are played along side a well deserved laugh. You laugh along with the film, the opposite of what the past films have been guilty of.
Also, this is the best live-action 3D film since Alice in Wonderland. Disney and Sony have the new 3D technology locked-down. All other studios should just give up.