Pirates 4 sails on safer tides rather than stranger ones

Rating: 7/10 (9 October 2012)

No one expected Pirates of the Caribbean 4 to live up to the originality of the first film but it does manage to bring some of the frivolous fun back into the series that went missing in the third film with a simpler story aimed purely to entertain.
A new director (Rob Marshall) helps to inject some enthusiasm back into the franchise and the inclusion of fresh bunch of supporting characters, led by Penelope Cruz, was a wise choice given the characters portrayed by Knightly and Bloom had pretty much run their course. Let's face it as far as characters go Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow is the real draw card for the series and has been since day one.
The opening action sequence has been criticized as being overly choreographed and while I agree it does come off a little too staged at times I thought it was a lot of fun to watch and given the director is best known for musicals such as Nine and Chicago you'd expect the action sequences to have a dance like rhythmic quality to them.
There are no undead pirates or mutated sea creatures in this chapter. Instead we have have to make do with a brief scene involving Mermaids to satisfy the 'supernatural' aspect and while the sequence was engaging I found I was left wanting for some ghosts of pirates past.
McShane's Blackbeard has drawn criticism for not being menacing enough while Rush is applauded for almost stealing the show and while I'd agree on both counts I felt it was a tough ask for McShane to maintain the menace level expected for the duration of his screen- time especially given the tone of the film. Keith Richards has an all too brief cameo reprising his role as Jack's father, so brief and oddly placed that you wonder why they bothered but I'm guessing director Marshall is a fan... personally I'd like to see Aerosmith's Steven Tyler play Jack's uncle in the 5th film, if there is to be one. Tyler dresses like a pirate anyway so if nothing else he'd save the production by supplying his own wardrobe.
While Pirates 4 might have failed to set the franchise sailing again I found it rather enjoyable and better than expected.