The worst Pirates film yet, truly awful

Rating: 2/10 (20 May 2011)

So you know where I stand, I loved Pirates 1. It was "fun", it was epic, it was clever and funny. It might have had some pacing problems, but it's still the epitome of what an action/adventure should be - and it's still fun to watch 8 years later.
Meanwhile, I thought Pirates 2 was epic. I actually think it's quite a bit underrated, and though it has about 20 minutes where it loses focus, otherwise it keeps taking you somewhere new. The cannibal island wasn't at all a waste either, it re-united all the characters and was a fun sequence. I thought it rivaled the first, and overall wasn't quite as clever as #1 but it was even bigger in scope. To me Pirates 2 is what a summer blockbuster should be.
Pirates 3, however, I thought was terrible, and almost unwatchable, though it had moments of brilliance, namely the "at world's end" scenes. I've only seen it twice, and will likely never watch it again in my life.
So here we are at Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. I wasn't expecting brilliance, but I was hoping for a fun summer pirates adventure. Something along the lines of the first, maybe not quite as clever, but still good fun.
Instead I got a laborious, muddy film with little joy or cleverness. It was a chore to sit through, much as I felt about At World's End, but unlike that film this one doesn't even have the occasional moments of brilliance (like the "world's end" scenes in 3 which were very zany and unique; here, you never really see any stranger tides).
What's worst is there's some cool ideas here. The ships in the bottles, Blackbeard, Barbossa working for the king, the whole idea of a "race" for the fountain of youth, hell, the FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. So many cool things and none of them go anywhere. There are no real characters or character arcs. Nothing happens with anyone, nobody "changes" or goes on a journey of any sort of their own.
I know character development might not have been the strong suit of the earlier films, but usually there were the basics, especially in the first: you knew what people wanted, and why, and understood why they were doing what they were doing to get it. And the character's had their own personalities, and were unique from one another.
But most of all this film just wasn't fun. There were very few clever or quotable lines. It was the smallest in scale of all 4 films, and the set pieces besides the mermaid attack were all underwhelming and occasionally even boring. The mermaid attack was cool, but there was some shoddy CGI and they never really went anywhere with it. You never really get the sense that it's a "race" for the fountain of youth, and the script could have done a lot more with its premise.
For starters, I'd say lose Barbossa, have Cruz be with the Spanish, but still the daughter of Blackbeard, and have it be a 3-way race between her, Jack and Blackbeard. Make the fountain of youth sequence more than a poor rip-off of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Do something new, perhaps give Jack a more serious dilemma to face in the 2nd act that makes him more than just a clown. This film has no pulse.
And I don't understand how anyone could dislike Dead Man's Chest and like this. On Stranger Tides was talkie, and all the double-triple cross stuff mainly didn't come in until #3. Dead Man's Chest was an easier to follow plot than this, and the characters had more complexity and clarity than here. The production design was also a marvel. On Stranger Tides, meanwhile, rarely feels like you're in the Caribbean, and the sets stick out like a sore thumb from the location stuff.
3/10... it'd be lower, except I know movies like Batman & Robin exist, so I have to adjust accordingly.