A solid fantasy film, but doesn't quite hold up overall

Rating: 5/10 (5 June 2011)

I must admit that I really enjoyed the first three movies in the franchise, so I walked in with high expectations for this movie. This movie is a good action fantasy movie. It has some great 3D scenes, Blackbeard is clearly a scary guy, and the mermaids are as beautiful as they are dangerous. It has nice effects, and the action is well done.
That being said, it wasn't quite the same caliber as the first three movies of the franchise. The previous movies had action and had fantasy too, but they were not just that. They were mostly character driven, and we as the audience were able to walk away really feeling like we got to know Sparrow, Davy Jones, Barbossa, Will and Elizabeth, and even the less major characters like Beckett and Tia Dalma. The movies were funny because we got to see the pirates' mind at work at lying, cheating, double-crossing, and all working for their own good while somehow everything worked out well for everyone. I'm normally not a big fan of romance, but even the story of Will and Elizabeth (and especially the more intriguing story of Elizabeth and Jack) were very well presented to the audience. But in this movie, there is no such complexity. The Spaniards remain a constant threat to the Brit's expedition throughout the entire film, but they appear about all of three times, and serve absolutely no useful purpose at all. I personally feel like I don't know Blackbeard at all other than the fact that he's got crazy magic powers. I also don't feel like I got to know Syrena, the random preacher whose sole purpose is to build an awkward unconvincing romance, or any of Blackbeard's crew. We already know Jack and Barbossa so they saved the film from total disaster, but even their acting was forced, awkward, repetitive, and mostly lacking in complexity or in any new character developments. It was as if they were just shadows of the great characters built in the previous three movies.
But as an action-fantasy flick, it's not bad. I just hope that the next two movies are more complex and deserving of the Pirates of the Caribbean name.