Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

May 21^st: Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Jack Sparrow returns as the lead in a new aquatic voyage to the fountain of youth.

Before I went into this movie, I said it was going to be bad. My friends said it was going to be bad. TRS reviewed it as being bad. It was bad.

Cast:

The strangest part of the movie is that Jonny Depp is still good. The character of Jack Sparrow was so good in the previous 3 movies that executives decided he needed his own movie. Big mistake. Depp is still funny and provides his usual over the top style to the character. The rest of the cast weren’t as good. Penelope Cruz has yet to wow me in a film. She wasn’t bad in 10 Items Or Less, but still not as good as Morgan Freeman. Ian McShane was better, but still not as good in my eyes. His accent was shaky at times and I just didn’t believe that Blackbeard was the most feared pirate to live. Geoffrey Rush was good. His character fitted in well.

The story for those who don’t know is based on a book of the same name as sub-title. The writers adapted their characters into the story of the book. Sparrow and Barbossa fitted in well I thought, with the rest of the cast being new characters, with the exception of Gibbs. But that the characters fitted in well, didn’t mean the story was good. It wasn’t. Richard Griffiths as King George wants the fountain but so do the Spanish and Geoffrey Rush and Jack Sparrow and it all gets a bit iffy with motives. There is also a subplot between two useless characters that doesn’t hold my interest at all. There were a couple of silly bits that Disney have thrown in for the kids and as level hints to the videogame creators, especially a scene in a wrecked boat that needs stabilising, but was fine while Sparrow is walking around. The movie is also very dark. There is a long while where its night and when the scene changes, it’s a wide shot a mountain in the morning and it physically hurt my eyes to look at it.

The addition of Stephan Graham into the crew was a nice surprise and all the cgi is up to scratch, especially with all the mermaid scenes, but apart from that, it's all very the same thing. Its about 2 and half hours long, which is about 30/45mins too long.

Recommend: Only if you’re a fan of the other 3

Overall: 6/10