Review of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) by James R — 27 May 2017

Franchise fatigue has hit this series. Or hell maybe it's because Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides took too long to come out (4 years after the previous film), or maybe it's because they went down on the budget (300 million previously to about 175-230 for this one).

There's a lot of factors, but the one truth to all of this is that this movie isn't very good. Gone are Will and Elizabeth and in return we have a self sufficient story here that just follows Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp).

As was hinted at the end of At World's End (2007) this film centers around the search for the fountain of youth. After finding out that the Spanish have found the location of the fountain of youth the English hire Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) to lead an expedition to get to the fountain before the Spanish.

Jack is taken in by the English and forced to help Barbossa, but in typical Captain Sparrow fashion he escapes and runs into an old flame by the name of Angelica (Penelope Cruz) who has been posing as Jack and recruiting people for her ship.

Well turns out not is all it seems. Angelica turns out to be the first mate and daughter to Captain Blackbeard (Ian McShane). Angelica uses Jack and his compass to find the fountain so that a prophecy for seeing Blackbeard's death won't happen.

So it's a race to the fountain of youth where the crews need certain items for the fountain to work which include two silver chalices the tears of a mermaid and a soul to take! Anywho, although this may sound like a great story the plot itself is one of the weak points of this film.

There's a lot of great action sequences don't get me wrong, but the movie drags too many times. There's literally filler throughout the film. Whether it's forcing the terrible romance between Jack and Angelica, or another subplot involving a missionary named Philip (Sam Claflin) and a mermaid named Syrena (Astrid Berges-Frisbey) who I'm assuming here would have had bigger roles in sequels if this movie had done better.

Blackbeard never feels like a really good villain (especially after such a great job by Davey Jones in the last two films). And then of course there's Penelope Cruz. Man she can get very annoying in practically every scene.

I don't know if her character was just written down for that, or if maybe she's just overacting, but fuck was this one a miss. This is a miscast if I've ever seen one! It's hard to recommend this one especially when it's not good! The first three are solid, but with the newest film coming out Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017), I'm not exactly sure how much of this movie will even connect.

Worth just a rental at the very least.