Despite the disaster that was
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, I decided to brave
On Stranger Tides. In the latest edition, there is a four-way race between Barbossa (
Geoffrey Rush), Blackbeard and his pirate daughter Angelica (
Ian McShane and
Penelope Cruz), the Spanish, and our indomitable hero Jack Sparrow (
Johnny Depp) to find the Fountain of Youth. Conspicuously absent are Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner, but they're replaced by some seductive and kinda scary mermaids.
This movie is a definite improvement over
At World's End. None of the sequels have touched
Curse of the Black Pearl in terms of enjoyment, humor, story (such as it is), or swashbuckling fun. But there are some good bits, and Ian McShane plays a totally nasty Blackbeard.
Bottom line: watchable fluff.
Ok, by coincidence I just watched this last night and had such a violent reaction that I have to comment. This movie was bad. I'd even say worse than all three of the previous entries in the series (of which I will agree that Black Pearl is obviously great). There seems to be no point to the plot, the characters have no coherent motivation, Blackbeard, who should be an AWESOME villain...just isn't threatening at all, and oh look, mermaids, what? and the Spanish, oh! It's just totally random. And the worst, perhaps most egregious part, is that the action is ALSO random, confusing, and totally pointless. Some movies with a swiss cheese plot I can totally get through as long as the action set pieces are amazing (which all three previous movies excelled at), and here they just aren't. And to clarify, when I say "this movie was bad", I don't mean to say I regret watching it, I just mean that I would not go out of my way to watch it again.
ReplyDeleteI'll grant you that the action sequences were quite weak, but I definitely preferred this one to #3. I think maybe it's because this one at least felt like an actual pirate movie, whereas there they just threw in everything up to and including the kitchen sink in order to drive the story. And frankly, I don't remember #2 very well, except for the guy with the octopus face (which was gross), so I can't say much by way of comparison. But I can say that in three or four years, I probably won't remember this one, nor am I likely to watch it again (so we agree there). Nonetheless, I enjoyed the distraction for a couple of hours.
ReplyDeleteRecently saw this and reminded me of your post. Might be more awesome than movies 2,3 and 4...combined.
ReplyDeleteMichael Bolton has never had it so good.
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