The worst pirates yet, and really isn't a good movie in any way

Rating: 4/10 (22 July 2011)

The Pirates of the Caribbean is (was) a great series. The first movie was ingenious in the way it mixed humor with serious threats and interesting characters. The second movie was a lot more epic, had a giant kraken, more CGI, and really lived up to the first. The third movie dragged out way too long and had so much going on that it was hard to follow. Well the fourth is here and everyone is expecting something epic and... it fails.
From the moment I heard the director of Chicago was making this movie I cringed, because I had no idea how this movie would turn out. The first rule about comedies, or any movie with a humorous main character is that you need a straight man (meaning serious, this has nothing to do with sexuality) but since Will Turner is not in this movie it is just Jack... and Jack alone doesn't really work. Jack was always our favorite character, but without a serious character to carry the plot Jack just feels off. To compensate for the lack of a straight character, Jack has to play a straight man and the comedian... at the same time. Also, Jack Sparrow in this movie doesn't seem as witty or clever as in the other movies, and the villain in this movie was laughable.
Black Beard is the main antagonist in this movie, and he utterly fails as a villain compared to Barbossa, or to Davy Jones. Black Beard doesn't really seem all that threatening, all he has is a ship that he can control, and when he controls his ship with his sword it actually looks kind of stupid. One of the problems in this movie is that everyone's character is changed. Barbossa is now sort of a good guy which really doesn't make sense at all, and Jack Sparrow actually cringes when he sees people dying. There is one scene that seemed rather silly where black beard kills someone by using flamethrowers on his ship, and Jack Sparrow and everyone act like they have never seen someone die. In all of the other movies Jack Sparrow couldn't care less if he let people die, in the second movie he was willing to sell 100 souls to Davy Jones. Either way all of the characters seems off.
There is this stupid love plot between a missionary and a mermaid which had absolutely, I MEAN ABSOLUTELY, nothing to do with the plot. It was just there and it made no sense. The missionary and the mermaid seemed to be there just for the sake of adding romance, but there is already some of that between Jack and Black Beard's daughter.
Another problem with the movie is that action. This movie cannot compare to any of the other movies, and what made the other movies enjoyable were its humorous and unique battles. This movie has none, and there is this whole mermaid battle thing which seemed pretty weird. One of the biggest issues I had is that mermaid sunk a ship. THEY SUNK A SHIP! And they sunk it not by firepower, but by sheer weight... does anybody see a problem with that? There are no witty fights in this movie which is what we have come to expect from a pirates movie. Blackbeard has some zombie henchmen which have nothing to do with the story. Blackbeard also can apparently store ships in a bottle, and he has the black pearl... this makes no sense at all also, and it just seemed like it was thrown in at the last second. Besides wasn't the black pearl taken by Davy Jones, even though Davy Jones is dead.
All in all this movie is only enjoyable for the sake of seeing a few of the pirates characters... actually that would be only three. Jack's dad, Jack, and Barbossa oh and Gibbs. Other than that you do no have the original cast. This movie was a waste of a good franchise, and hopefully no more pirates movies will be made unless they actually know what they are doing... oh yeah this movie was filmed in Hawaii and it is pretty obvious because the scenery looks so off. And a slight problem for some people is that this movie portrays real historical figures but fictionalizing them... that's not a big complaint but it is a little odd seeing as how Black Beard was a real person.