Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Directed by Rob Marshall

Seen at Cambridge Arts Picturehouse

[rating: 2/5]

People are being mean about Pirates 4. They say it’s rubbish, they say the concept is knackered, they say it’s just a moneymaking venture. Well it is, all those things, but crucially, it’s not quite as utterly awful as they say. I still left the cinema humming the theme tune, and feeling like Jack Sparrow, which is pretty much you all need from any Pirates of the Caribbean film anyway.

This probably has something to do with the third installment. Having had our expectations lowered to such barrel-scraping levels by the plethora of megastars desperately trying to make something of their minute on screen, On Stranger Tides seems muted by comparison. The story is not particularly complicated this time – there’s a magic fountain, people want to drink from it – but in going to the opposite extreme, oddly, the film suffers.

The simplicity of the quest obviously led to a board meeting in which it was decided that they needed some other stuff for the characters to do for two hours. Mermaids and Spanish treasure were picked over leprechauns and Spanish omelette. The film is like a guided tour – after the mermaids, you meet Blackbeard (Ian McShane), go to a tropical island, see the fountain, get off, go home. It’s a series of completely disconnected set-pieces. The futility of the whole thing is made conspicuous by the Spaniard sub-plot; some people who appear at the beginning, are briefly on a boat (with T-Pain…? Who can say?), and then arrive at the end and blow the shit out of everything, leaving us questioning what the point of the filler stuff was.There’s a bland love story thrown in for good measure – why that was left in is a mystery, as the bible bashing guy (he’s not worth the effort of looking up his name) is a charisma vacuum to rival Shia LaBeouf. Penelope Cruz’s pregnancy means she looks even more radiantly lovely than usual, but also seems to have had an adverse effect on her acting, and the potentially smouldering Depp–Cruz alliance only sparkles very occasionally.

The 3-D is utterly worthless – much of the film looks exactly the same with the glasses off, and the jumpy-outy potential of the mermaids is, criminally, never exploited. If you do want to see the film, save yourself the expense and looking silly, and see it in 2-D.

Out of this depressing list of flaws, Johnny Depp and the dermatologically challenged Geoffrey Rush are left to clear up the mess. Their raid on the Spanish camp (ok, so they appear four times – sue me) is the only scene of sustained entertainment, and the mood of the film lifts above soul – and money – sucking monotony when they appear together. Ian McShane is a suitably bastardly as Blackbeard, and between the three of them they manage to elevate this film somewhat. They are clearly enjoying themselves in their pirate costumes, especially Rush, who is still milking the ‘arrrrrrrrrghs’ for all they’re worth 8 years on.

The biggest problem with this film is that the occasional self-mocking jokes (look out for one of the best cameos ever early on) only draw attention to the fact that it could have been so much more. Rather than the big, dumb, enjoyable, Die Hard 4.0-style romp that we could have had, On Stranger Tides falls flat for long periods. The better scenes then only serve as a reminder of what might have been.

Fine work from three-quarters of the lead quartet just about lifts this film above total blandness, and it’s certainly a far cry from the incomprehensible flurry of part three. All in all, despite occasional glimpses of the old swashbuckling magic, this puts the ‘aargh’ firmly back into ‘aargh-verage’.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR_9A-cUEJc