I'm a bad man

Rating: 6/10 (5 June 2011)

What Jerry Bruckheimer says to himself everyday. Anyway, 2010 was a bad year for Mr. Brockheimer, producing two flops, Prince of Persia and The Sorcerer's Apprentice, so needed a hit to get back on top. Luckily a Pirates of the Caribbean sequel is a good way to do that, even though At World's End was a incomprehensible mess and the director of the original trilogy, Gore Verbinski decided to make an animated film instead.
In the middle of the 18th Century Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) is in London after loosing the Black Pearl after the end of the third and King George II (Richard Griffiths) orders the pirate to lead an expedition to the Fountain of Youth, with Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), who is now a privateer for the British Navy. Despite this Jack does not join them and escape, finding out someone is pretending to be him and lead their own expedition. He is soon captured and taken on board the Queen Anne's Revenge, the ship of Blackbeard (Ian McShane) and his daughter Angelica (Penelope Cruz), a former flame of Jack's. Soon Blackbeard, the British led by Barbossa and the Spanish are all heading to the Fountain and want it's power.
After the problems of At World's End, the budget of On Stranger's Tide was tighten, with filming moved to London and Hawaii and the plot was simplified. This was a smart move because it gave the characters and factors a clear focus. It is a better plotted film then At World's End and characters do not have loads of different goals. There were a few subplots but they were in context of the overall of the film, such as mutiny and the capturing of a mermaid. The actual story about finding the Fountain was very similar to an Indiana Jones, trying to find a famous legendary object/treasure/location and what's impact could be. Essentially this film is trying to be a Indiana Jones film with pirates. At the same time Jack's ability double cross people is toned down and On Stranger's Tide suffers because of it.
Rob Marshall replaced Verbinski in the director's chair and he is best known for making musicals. He does an decent enough job and pretty much the same from the previous films. This Pirates film is shot with a darker colour pallet and creates a problems, because it makes it harder to see the action sequences. The action is this film is the weakest in the series, the mermaid attack the best part of the film. On Stranger's Tide was shot in 3D and I saw it in 2D: but the 3D shots shall we say lacked subtly, with Blackbeard thrusting his sword or the mermaids driving towards the camera. Also Marshall saw fit to add some dancing and singing in the film.
Johnny Depp obviously loves the characters, he keeps coming back to the role and I am sure it's not just for the money. He is still pretty funny, but Sparrow was a more serious character this time round. Cruz is a fine addition to the cast as the feisty woman who is a capable fighter and had a spark with Depp, though I would have liked to have seen Zoe Saldana's character from the first film return and have her character expanded upon. Cruz is a talented actor and her Latin charms were a great addition to series: hopefully she will returns and get a bigger role. McShane is always good as a villain for hire, menacing and ruthless, particularly with the mermaid. Rush however looks very ragged and his role was pretty pointless: I am sure he respired his role for the paycheque so he could afford to do smaller films like The King Speech. Somehow the casting director found an actor who was even more boring then Orlando Bloom, Sam Claflin, who was a really brand, wet missionary who added nothing to the film and Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey is very petty, but because of lack of English skills she did not speak much. And Stephen Graham was seriously misused: he is a talented actor and was just used as a comic relief character, not say, a tough swordfighter and potential match for Jack.
There are elements of the film which are not expanded, like how does Blackbeard control the ship with his sword: is it a magic sword? Some explanation would be nice. Also Blackbeard's officers are zombies, making them more obedient, wouldn't it make more sense to make the crew into zombies and let the officers keep their intelligence and if anything the zombies did not seem that out of it: their only advantage is that they could survive being stabbed.
At times On Stranger's Tide feels a bit lazy and laboured, made simply to cash in on the popularity of the series. I have never been a big fan of the series but the films are entertaining enough. I just hope the fifth film the final one, allowing Jack Sparrow to retire and put some effort into it. On Stranger's Tide is decent enough but it is your typical blockbuster fare. You got to love Hans Zimmer's music, giving Pirates an almost Lord of the Rings style score this time round.