‘Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides’

Director: Rob Marshall

Starring: Johnny Depp, Penélope Cruz, Geoffrey Rush

2/5 popcorns

The fourth installment in Disney’s extraordinarily lucrative ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ franchise cuts much of the fat from the previous installments, but the result isn’t necessarily a more attractive product.

Gone are franchise mainstays Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, whose relationship grew tiresome and injured the series’ adventurous spark. Gore Verbinski, who helmed the first three ‘Pirates’ flicks, has been replaced by Rob Marshall, who has yet to achieve critical acclaim since earning an Oscar for his best picture-winning musical, ‘Chicago’ (2002).

Perhaps Disney hired Marshall in the hopes he might infuse its most venerable franchise with the same energy and style he so expertly exercised while reviving the Hollywood musical. It’s painfully obvious that Marshall’s first foray into the action genre is the work of a novice, but he succeeds where Verbinski struggled in the second and third outings of the franchise. Even if he isn’t a natural when it comes to crafting sufficiently exciting action sequences, Marshall succeeds at bringing out the most in the flamboyant Johnny Depp, whose performance carries the films.

At the start of Marshall’s film, Captain Jack Sparrow (Depp) finds himself on stranger tides indeed: land, where he’s attempting to find the man who’s impersonating him and putting a crew together. Snooping around London, Sparrow discovers the impersonator is not a man, but the beautiful Angelica (Penélope Cruz), his former lover and the daughter of the infamous Blackbeard. His beloved ship, the Black Pearl, gone, Jack tags along with the crew of Blackbeard’s vessel, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, on their voyage to locate the fountain of youth.

Sparrow is not as concerned with preventing the soulless Blackbeard from finding the fountain he’s more interested in recovering his ship, which Blackbeard has stashed in a glass bottle. With the help of his old friend Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), who aims to kill Blackbeard, Jack might stand a chance against the legendary kingpin of the seas.

Depp has lost none of his affinity for the Sparrow character, though the previous ‘Pirates’ pictures did not exercise his full potential. Because of his oddball nature, Sparrow isn’t the type of character one necessarily wants in every scene, but with the ever so expendable Bloom and Knightley now gone, viewers are served as generous a helping of Jack as they could have wished for.

Sparrow is one of the most iconic characters of the last decade, and ‘On Stranger Tides’ is his first real test as the sole action hero in one of the giant ‘Pirates’ productions. Slightly less charismatic, Depp is not as outstanding as he is in the first film, for which he garnered an Academy Award nomination, but he returns close to form as the woozy, compulsively watchable swashbuckler who continues to impress, if not surprise.

The film is understandably over-reliant on Depp, and while he’s put to good use, the action and conflict are simply not engaging and play to the worst stereotypes concerning big blockbuster moviemaking. Like the worst mega-movies, it throws in the kitchen sink when all it really needs is a more varied tone and more thoughtful character development.

Marshall has always been a very ambitious director, but ‘On Stranger Tides’ does not reflect his best qualities as a choreographer of action. Though it trots from beautiful location to beautiful location, ‘On Stranger Tides’ is not nearly as adventurous as a ‘Pirates’ film should be. The action sequences are numbingly generic. From sword fights you’ve seen a thousand times to mermaids that are hardly intimidating, much of the action becomes monotonous almost immediately and eventually dull.

Disney will surely milk Jack Sparrow for all he’s worth, but judging by the course of the franchise, it may simply have nothing left.

smlittma@syr.edu

Published on May 24, 2011 at 12:00 pm