Posted on Thursday, 19th May 2011 by Declan Palazzi
Somewhere, Uncle Walt is weeping.
Outside of corporate greed, is there any reason Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” (in 3-D), the fourth film in the “Pirates” series, should exist? Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom, who co-starred in the first three “Pirates” movies, vote “no” by their absence, and -after seeing it Tuesday night at Boston Common in pseudo-IMAX, I second their emotion.
The screenplay by series regulars Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio (“Shrek”) is a retread of tropes we were tired of after the first three films. The action, directed by Rob Marshall (“Chicago”) replacing series regular Gore Verbinski (“Rango”), is uninspired and notably pared down.
Between unlikely chase sequences and PG-13 sword battles, the characters have nothing to do except bore one another (and the audience) half to death explaining the plot.
That begins when Capt. Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp, who, oy, is set to play Tonto next) is supposed to be tried and hanged in London, but turns the tables on his tormentors and escapes.
If you think about anything that happens in the film’s opening minutes, you’ll see that it’s all totally preposterous. But these films, neo-Spielbergian extravaganzas inspired by a ride at the Disney theme park, aren’t really for thinkers, are they? That was fine by me when Verbinski was demonstrating the fine art of Buster Keaton-esque naval maneuvers such as the battle inside a maelstrom between the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman in “At World’s End” (2007). But this is nothing like that.
Instead, Jack and rivals Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush, managing to milk a few lines for laughs) and Edward Teach, also known as Blackbeard the Pirate (the great Ian McShane in a role that is all bellowing chin fur) and Blackbeard’s beautiful daughter Angelica (Penelope Cruz), as well as soldiers of the British and Spanish navies, race to find the fabled Fountain of Youth in the New World by following in the famed Spaniard explorer Ponce de Leon’s footsteps. Hands up if you know who Ponce de Leon is?
The plot will further involve two silver chalices (which holds “the pellet with the poison,” you may wonder?); the tear of a mermaid; zombie shipmates; and a sudden game of pirate Russian roulette (dear aspiring screenwriters, when in doubt, Russian roulette is always a way to go).
So are you ready to pony up a 3-D premium to see Johnny Depp run like a girl in his mascara and dreadlocks again, and big-flippered mermaids wearing computer-generated pasties?
For reasons best known only to the writers, the aforementioned mermaids are able to turn into hissing fanged monsters. Depp and Rush have more onscreen chemistry than Depp and Cruz.
As a handsome young missionary who falls in love with a mermaid (Astrid Berges-Frisbey), Englishman Sam Claflin has an impossibly stupid role to play and looks bewildered playing it. Also impossibly stupid is the scene in which Blackbeard demonstrates his ship’s flame thrower.
Ahoy, mateys. This ship has sailed.
(“Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” contains PG-13 violence and mermaids in computer-generated pasties.)
Tags: Pirates, Pirates Loses
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