{Feature} Pirates Of The Caribbean : On Stranger Tides

As I work on finishing more reviews for you guys I figured I have one my best friends and movie-partner-in-crime JP Wickwire write a review of the currently out Pirates of The Caribbean 4.
Oh and enjoy the video ;)

The most important thing to remember about Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, is to forget.

What? It’s true! As strange as it may sound, one must simply remember to forget. Forget everything you know about the Pirates franchise. Forget about the characters we grew to know and love.  Forget that this is the fourth movie in a series.  The only way you can truly enjoy this movie, is to forget everything you know, and start from scratch.

Simply put, On Stranger Tides is Disney’s shaky attempt to reboot the pirates franchise. After losing/letting go of the star-crossed Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom, and deciding to scale back from the epic proportions of At World’s End, Disney literally starts at square one. They have Jack, the lucky quirk of a pirate, Barbossa, the wizened backstabber, and... well, that’s really all that’s left. Like it or not, audience were deeply attached to the Will/Elizabeth love line that stitched the trilogy together. And now? We have nothing to hold onto. (They even switched directors (which, by the way, was a bad idea. The new guy just isn’t as good).

And neither did the screenwriters, judging from the first half hour or so of On Stranger Tides.  Though both writers had worked on the previous Pirates movies, neither seemed to know which way to take the story.  Their attempts to move along with Jack as their focus character smacks--ironically--of melancholy.

What is this? I asked myself between bites of popcorn (actually, that’s a lie. I don’t eat movie theater popcorn).  Jack is sad? Jack is missing his past piratey friends. He doesn’t have the Pearl. He doesn’t have Will to make eunuch comments to. He doesn’t have Elizabeth to at once repulse and seduce.  What does he have?

Nothing.

Which, again, is why you have to forget everything you know about Pirates in order to enjoy On Stranger Tides. 

Thankfully, after the initial slump, On Stranger Tides picks up.  Jack finds a mission, and suddenly, he comes back to life. Barbossa finds something to hate, and he comes back to life.  We get a few new couples to either root for, or cast aside (you decide, of course), including a peculiar love story between a missionary and a mermaid... two characters who are arguably more likeable than Jack.  And given the bend of this movie, that’s saying a lot.

Blackbeard plays our principal villain, but he couldn’t outdo Davy Jones.  Angelica plays Jack’s love interest, and while they do have a bit of chemistry, it still falls flat for me.  Jack here seems almost as desperate as the story does--”I don’t have Will and his bonny lass to adventure with anymore; I guess I need to get all self-sacrificing for another chick.”

The best part of the movie is undoubtedly the haunting mermaid/siren scene, which was the best scripted, directed, and shot segment of the film. It brought back all that old pirate magic from the previous three installments, and I once again could believe I was watching Jack back in action.

This may sound like a scathing review, but it isn’t trying to be.  On Stranger Tides may not live up to its piratey predecessors, but if taken out of context, and away from the other three movies, it’s still an awful lot of fun.  And ironically, given the prospect of even more sequels, I think the story will continue to get better and better. 

J.P. Wickwire is the founder of the book review blog The Daily Monicle

Here's The Actual Trailer.