Aggressively Mediocre

Rating: Null/10 (9 August 2011)

I enjoyed the first Pirates film, yawned through the second, and never saw the third. When this one came to the bargain cinema, the power was out and I was looking for something to occupy the time before the power company did their thing.
It was not two-plus hours well spent, but it was adequate to pass the time. There was some action to distract, a few laughs here and there, and some passable special effects, though they were sparing this run-through.
My main problem with it was that despite getting rid of the incredibly annoying characters of Will and Lizzy from the first three films, as well as most of the rest of the recurring cast, they still found a way to avoid Jack as much as possible. It wasn't really about him any more than the other films. The promises to explore his past were completely untrue, and we got little more than a few jokes about how he knew Angelica. He was always a treat when he was on-screen, but so much of the film centred around less interesting characters that it was at times off-putting.
Jack also seemed not to move the plot as he had in the previous films. In the first, he was always the driving impetus for movement. In this one, he seems to be swept up in everything else happening and never once actually drives anything. Instead of being a capable captain whose apparent buffoonery is often to get his enemies off-guard, he really does seem like just a very lucky idiot here, which isn't really fair to the character built through three films already.
Geoffrey Rush's Barbossa was well-acted, if frustrating, and Ian McShane's Blackbeard was full of personality and gravitas, if completely unsympathetic. Unfortunately Penelope Cruz, despite being a capable actress, has little to work with as Angelica, and she failed to be anything but irritating until her very last scene. Why couldn't we have had that interplay the whole film? Sam Claflin somehow manages to be more annoying than Orlando Bloom as the inane missionary Philip, but he at least fulfills his role as eye candy, inasmuch as he can. Astrid Berges-Frisbey is serviceable as the mermaid Syrena, but makes little impact. The rest of the cast is fine but not prominent.
The story is plodding and meandering, which is not surprising since it had nine screenwriters. It never seems to know what it's doing, and yet it manages to be rather unexciting. When the LEGO game released in tandem is more thrilling than your film, you know there's an issue.
The theme of redemption and faith, overwhelmed by clumsy religious leanings, was off-putting and interfered with most of the characters involved being in any way sympathetic or interesting. The two who seemed to embody the extremes of that faith -- Philip and the Spanish captain -- both came off as completely awful, with the first an ineffectual clod you wanted them to be rid of and the latter nothing more than an ignorant, disrespectful zealot. The Spanish also tended to be nothing but a deus ex machina, who never made any impact on the story and only did anything when the script needed a convoluted climax. It was tremendously unfulfilling that they received no consequences for any of their actions at all.
At least Jack's past with Angelica poked merciless fun at the seeming necessity for 'romance' in these films, even the pastiche between Philip and Syrena. Perhaps in the next film, they will dispense with the weak attempts at romance and concentrate on action and adventure, which is what people go to these films to see.
Overall, it was a film that was okay for wasting time, but nothing special. Not better than the first, although at least it didn't end like the second, and I hear it was far better than the third. It was just unfortunately rather dull and unexceptional, which is a shame since it is supposed to relaunch the series.