Breaking from my regular format, I have some things to say about the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise in general, but I will get into specifics about On Stranger Tides.
In 2003 when I first heard of The Curse of the Black Pearl, I thought meh, they're making a movie about a Disney ride. I saw the trailers, it seemed decently interesting, so I made plans to see it. After all, it had been a hard summer: my grandmother passed away, and I was about to leave the country for my mission, and my little brother Ian had already seen the movie and wouldn't stop talking about it.
(Ian never gets like that about stuff, so that's how I knew it was cool.)
So like everyone else on Earth with a pulse, I saw it and fell in love with it. Brilliant story, great acting, visually delicious, wonderful soundtrack...just enjoyable on all levels. Bruckheimer and his gang knocked it out of the park.
Then 2006 rolled around, and with it Dead Man's Chest, the eagerly anticipated sequel. It was to Black Pearl what Empire Strikes Back was to A New Hope: a pretty good story, but totally incomplete, and would remain so until the cliffhanger was resolved.
And let's be honest with ourselves: it was a pretty big damn cliffhanger. Darth Vader was Luke's father, and Han Solo was frozen in carbonite to be delivered to Jabba the Hutt? That's not nearly as big as Captain Jack Sparrow looking a kraken right in the mouth and running straight at it, going down with his beloved ship...only to learn moments later that Captain Barbossa is still alive.
A lot of people disliked Dead Man's Chest. I understand why--it was a different treatment from the first one, but I still thought it was great. Jack Sparrow was still wildly entertaining, had plenty of good quips, and generally kept things moving in a curious direction.
A year later, At Worlds End hit theaters...and you'd better believe I had midnight tickets. It had everything that I expected from a third film: we found out how Barbossa survived (sea goddess), where Jack went (Davy Jones' locker), and how the crew of the Black Pearl could retrieve him (sailing to the end of the world.)
The whole thing ended with an epic sea battle between the Caribbean's two most awesome pirate ships: the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchmen. Some argue that it was pointless to unite a pirate navy against the British fleet only to not have them fight, and I agree...but I also get why they didn't do it (time! budget! whatever!) so I'm not bothered. (Although I did start to yawn and roll my eyes when Calypso grew to 50 feet tall, spat some jibber-jabber, turned into a pile of crabs, and fell off the side of the Pearl.)
And now, in 2011, we have On Stranger Tides. In a lot of ways...I'm unhappy.
Don't get me wrong: it wasn't a bad film. I for one got my expectations up way too high. Last year I read the Tim Powers novel twice, because it was so amazing. It had very little in common with the movie's story (which I anticipated, and that's fine) but I did hope that the movie would still enthrall me. Maybe not in the way that the book had, but in the way that the previous three had.
I could bore you with a long and detailed list of why I think this is, but...wait, yes, I'll bore you with that list.
1) CHARACTERS
In this one, we only saw three characters who had been in the three previous films: Sparrow, Barbossa, and Gibbs. Keith Richards reprised his role as Captain Teague for a whole three minutes, and my wife insists that one of the British sailors was in the previous films, but I dunno.
Blackbeard was historically and folklorically accurate, so that's cool. They even threw in the "Hell, if I didn't [insert dastardly act] every now and then, you'd forget who I was" line.
This story did lack Will and Elizabeth. I didn't think I'd miss them. But I did.
In fact, I missed all of Jack's crew. That was a problem: what's a Captain without his crew? Can you really have a whole Star Trek story with just Kirk and Spock? I don't think so. This film didn't get me the way the others did, because it was basically Star Trek with no Scotty, Uhura, Bones, Sulu or Chekov (or even the Enterprise for that matter.) I guess that while you couldn't have an awesome POTC movie without Jack, you can't have one with just Jack either.
And the crappy thing about that is, they could've included the old crew. But instead they injected a bunch of new (and really, really meaningless characters for whom I cared nothing.) There was, I dunno, some nameless missionary who hooked up with a near-pointless mermaid, then some zombies (that talk?) and a Spaniard who's like, ooh-aah, dangerous, and he appears all of four times.
I will say this: Barbossa was really something in this flick. Not enough to be a scene-stealer, but pivotal and meaningful. A man of passion. Watching the whole movie really pays off to see how it ends for him.
2) SETTING
They filmed this one in Hawaii--and it feels nothing at all like the last three.
I think it's cool that they used mermaids in this one. They've done everything else--skeletons, sea monsters, fish-people, massive storms...it fit well.
Wonder where they'll go from here.
3) ORIGINS
It's lost the original feel of being based on the Disney ride. (Even the third one had the sounds that came directly from the ride, including the parrot saying "Dead men tell no tales."
Jack did say "It's a pirate's life for me," which was close, but still. Maybe I'm being too nitpicky...
However, the redeeming moment in this category was when Jack and Barbossa went aboard Ponce de Leon's ship. I won't spoil it, suffice to say that it was very entertaining.
4) COMIC RELIEF
It also lacked Pintel and Raghetti (the two dunce pirates, one of whom had a wooden eye.) I missed them too.
Jack was still funny, but not as funny. No really quotable quips or memorable one-liners from this one. Well, maybe one or two, but not like the last ones. :(
5) CONTINUITY
I will say this much: each of the three previous films gave me an ending that wrapped up the whole thing in spectacular form, and when I walked out of the theater I was wholly satisfied. This fourth film had a wonderful ending, even if it took a really weird road to get there. In a lot of ways it solved its own problems and set up the any future films to be as good as the last ones...if they handle it right.
I even really liked the way the third movie ended. It was really heart-wrenching, a great conclusion, a victory for all the good guys. Again, so was this one. I just hope that if they do a fifth one, they look back to what made the first one great.
I dunno, I think I'm done complaining now. Go see the movie and decide for yourself. And if you don't see the movie, at least buy the soundtrack. Hans Zimmer will never disappoint you.
I'm kind of burned out on pirate stuff for a while, so I'll let it be and go read something else. Have a great night.
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