Cash Cow Cinema

Rating: Null/10 (29 August 2011)

The "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise takes the oddball, zany adventures of early Hollywood pirate movies ("The Black Pirate", "Captain Blood", "The Buccaneer", "The Sea Hawk", "The Black Swan", "Captain Kidd", "Hornblower", "Blackbeard", "The Crimson Pirate", "Fairwind to Java") and spins them off into even wackier territory. Indeed, much of the joys of the first three films were in watching the various tales and characters veer off into increasingly mad, busy and nonsensical avenues. Unfortunately this excess quickly got out of hand, "action sequences" prolonged to boredom inducing lengths, dull subplots piled upon dull subplots. Eventually the franchise struggled to modulate its madness and started to take itself too seriously.
"Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides", the fourth film in the franchise, has a shorter running time than its siblings. It's more light-footed, moves better and keeps the level of subplots and characters somewhat down, though its best madcap moments (mermaid attacks, Johnny Depp swinging from coconut trees, giant ships stuck in tiny bottles) never match the wacky highs, comedic power poses and ridiculous gags of the previous movies.
All actors love acting in pirate movies – it gives them a chance to chew scenery and munch on deliciously ridiculous dialogue – and so most of the cast is a delight to watch. The dull, straight faced Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley are jettisoned for this instalment, leaving more room for tongue-in-cheek grandstanding and juicy dialogue chewing. The dialogue here is itself really good, witty and injected with a kind of deliberate theatricality ("Death is upon us as we sail for the Fountain of Youth!", "I support the missionary's position!").
The plot is hokum, but the actual construction of the script is somewhat interesting. It revolves around a series of romances, each epitomising a different type of romantic love (love for one's self, unconditional love, selfish love, love for a father, love for one one cannot love, a love-hate romance etc). Director Rob Marshall is too much of a hack to make anything of this. The production belongs to its actors, set-designers and writers. Marshall's too prim and proper to properly marshal their madness.
7.9/10 – This is apparently the eight most profitable film ever made. Worth one viewing.