Ricochet Reviews: Pirates of the Caribbean 4

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Director: Rob Marshall (Chicago, Memoirs of a Geisha, Nine)

Starring: Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Penelope Cruz, Ian McShane

Currently In Theaters

You know, On Stranger Tides definitely has a fitting name. It's a strange movie. On the one hand, the film suffers from being pointless, linear, and redundant. On the other hand, the film suffers from not really making much sense. I'm still unsure of how you could pull off both of these feats in the same film, but On Stranger Tides manages to do so. Not that the film is all bad, granted that you were a Pirates of the Caribbean fan to begin with.

Of course, you are a fan. Why else would you be wasting your time seeing the fourth film of the series? And for us fans, On Stranger Tides keeps enough of the old Pirates fun to make it worth seeing. Jack Sparrow does his normal Jack Sparrow-y thing, running around like a drunken genius, cutting ropes, and getting into fantastical shenanigans. Barbossa is back, too, and he's once again trying to chase down Jack. He's lost a leg since At World's End, too, which is probably the only positive addition this film makes to the series. And the film itself is adequately mystical, giving it that balance between fantasy and reality that makes the Pirates films fun.

There's a big "but" that follows all of that fan praise, though, and it's this: it's fun, but for some reason, the guys in charge are still afraid to just let Jack and Barbossa do their things. Somehow, after four years of promises that they would let their two best characters shine in the next film, they find a way to again hide them in with a jumble of unnecessary and unimportant characters. Jack becomes a servant on Queen Anne's Revenge, a ship captained by Blackbeard (McShane), for nearly half of the movie. This wouldn't be so bad if Blackbeard was actually a cool character. Instead of playing up his ferocity and giving him meaningful dialogue, director Rob Marshall gave him an annoying daughter (Cruz) and a sword that makes ropes move around. Don't even get me started on Cruz.

Meanwhile, Barbossa is leading a British colonial ship that is in pursuit of Sparrow and Blackbeard. Why do the filmmakers believe that we actually care about the British storyline they've been shoving down our throats for three films now? The only good character to come out of that entire branch of the story was Norrington, and halfway through At World's End they had ruined him, too. Then again, I guess they had to give Barbossa some reason to chase Jack since it would have been so hard for them to just make a movie where they are the two main characters.

Now, before I start ripping into the more crucial parts of the storyline, I should mention some parts that were quite good. I actually liked the scenes that take place in Britain. The scene in the courthouse and the chase through the streets of London was a fun way to introduce the film. I also liked how they handled the Black Pearl, although it should've played a role in the ending. I liked the idea of the mermaids, and, other than that weird vampire look they were sporting, I liked their design. I liked the location they used for the fountain of youth; it reminded me of the beautiful cinematography of the first three films, and I wish there was more of this color variety, like in the opening picture of this review. And, of course, I liked the scenes where Jack and Barbossa were on screen together, doing their piratey thing.

Too often, though, the story kept making me ask why. Why is there a romance sub-plot between this guy I've never seen before and a mermaid? Why are there zombies on Blackbeard's ship? Why is the rum gone? Why did Davy Jones have to die? He was so cool. But most importantly: Why in the hell are the Spaniards in this film at all? They're introduced at the very beginning of the film and don't return until the last 30 minutes. They have absolutely no purpose other than to steal two cups that Jack and Barbossa were going to steal anyways.

My number one problem with On Stranger Tides, though, is that it is pointless. If Cruz doesn't return for the fifth film, you could probably skip this one and lose nothing but a couple of inside jokes. Nothing important actually happens to Jack or Gibbs, and Barbossa's peg leg happens before the film begins. In fact, the only motivation within the film to establish any importance at all is that Jack is Blackbeard's prisoner. Barbossa doesn't care about the fountain of youth; he actually admits that. And when it's all over, basically everyone in the entire movie is dead except the three guys from the previous films and Cruz, meaning that not only will On Stranger Tides be unrelated to everything that came before it, but also that the film will have almost no bearing on what comes after, either.

I know that this review probably reads like a rant, and, to an extent, I want it to. There were far too many points in the film where I found myself shaking my head in frustration. Having said this, I can't pretend that I had a bad time while I was watching the movie. There were quite a few scenes that had me laughing, and the Pirates fan in me was almost satiated by the simple fact that Jack was back. On Stranger Tides is the worst and most forgettable of the four Pirates of the Caribbean films, but if you are a fan of the series, you'll definitely want to give it a chance.