daniel cohen explores the fourth installment of the Pirates series, matey …
Plot: Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) returns as he embarks on a quest to discover the Fountain of Youth. He ends up on the dreaded ship of Blackbeard (Ian McShane) who also searches for the fountain, as does Jack’s old rival Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush).
Let me preface by saying I’m not the biggest Pirates Of The Caribbean fan. I think all three previous films were mediocre at best. In fact, I’m in a weird camp because I think the sequels were slightly better. They were so ridiculous and crazy to the point where you couldn’t be at least wildly entertained. This fourth entry is nothing but a worse version of the original.
The first half is awful. There’s no energy whatsoever. The jokes fall flat, and the story is slooooooooooooooooooooooooow to develop. Nothing progresses for long periods of time. It’s excruciating. Johnny Depp is fine, but I’ve never been enamored with this character. I find him annoying at times, especially when he’s awkwardly stumbling around, always with that wide eyed look. He’s just constantly drunk, right?
What really bothers me about the first half is that it just uses the same tricks as before. There’s nothing new. Depp is on auto-pilot. There’s an escape scene that leads into a sword fight that is completely identical to the original. We’ve seen this before, done better. I’m not convinced a score was composed for this movie. I think they just pressed play on the past scores. It has the same musical beats matching up with similar moments we’ve seen before.
Like I said, the movie moves slower than Jabba the Hutt in a foot race. It’s definitely easier to follow in terms of pure plot then the others, but not by much. There are points were certain characters are talking and I can barely understand what they’re saying. I almost nodded off several times throughout the film.
The acting is fine, but there are no great performances. I’ve seen Depp do this way too many times. Ian McShane is solid as Blackbeard, but the franchise has had better villains. My favorite character has always been Geoffrey Rush’s Barbossa, but he really doesn’t do much here. I wanted to see a lot more of him. Penelope Cruz plays Blackbeard’s daughter Angelica and a past love interest to Sparrow. This was by far the worst performance. She’s not bad, but there’s just nothing there. She and Depp had absolutely zero chemistry, and the way their story ended made no sense whatsoever. A lot of people have complained about Keira Knightley’s acting in the past films, but at least she brought some spunk to the project.
Now I’ve been slamming this movie, but once the second half kicks in and the mermaids show up, it gets a lot better. The mermaids are easily the most compelling figures in the film. Talk about a split personality. When these mermaids get pissed, they are vicious, acting like someone just canceled a Sex And The City marathon. They looked visually compelling on screen though.
Although I was disappointed with Blackbeard as a villain, I like what he does with ships when he captures them. That was pretty bad ass. And Blackbeard does have some truly evil moments that hold your interest.
The ending is somewhat interesting, but it suffers the same flaw that all the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies do: too chaotic, and too many character shifts. I don’t think a character has ever developed in any of these movies. How is that possible? There are four of them, and they are all really long!!
I think if you’re a die hard Pirates Of the Caribbean fan, you’ll be okay, but slightly disappointed. And like with all these films, they of course set up for a sequel. But seriously, this franchise has absolutely nothing left. Stop! It’s like playing Fantasy Football, and you reach for an old running back in the draft because you think he might provide you with the production he gave in that one great season he had years ago. It’s not going to happen! I’m sure we’ll see another one, but Jack Sparrow is played out.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10 (Passable Entertainment)
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Nice job guys.