Dir. Rob Marshall, USA, 137mins, 2011
Cast: Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, Geoffrey Rush, Ian McShane, Stephen Graham
Review by Matthew Rodgers
Since The Black Pearl docked At World’s End in 2007, it has become quite fashionable to lambast this doubloon hording franchise as a never ending theme park ride with Depp’s Jack Sparrow seen as an increasingly indulgent and out of control performance that was once nominated for an Oscar.
Admittedly the trilogy got its globe-trotting plot strands more tangled than the Kraken’s tentacles by the end of episode 3 and Orlando Bland, sorry Bloom, and company had become stale by the time we reached the confusing conclusion. But there’s no denying that when Pirates peaked during Dead Man’s Chest, it was live-action Looney Tunes lunacy of the highest order, and I for one was ready to set sail once more.
This time around, Jack (Depp) is recruited by Richard Griffiths as King George II to find the fabled fountain of youth. Joined by Black Pearl nemesis Captain Barbossa (Rush), who is now working for the monarch, and pursued by history’s most fearsome pirate Blackbeard (McShane), who has Sparrow’s former flame in tow in the shapely shape of Angelica (a pregnant whilst filming Penelope Cruz), they are all in a high seas race against time to cheat death.
Whoever came up with the title should be made to walk the plank. There’s nothing “stranger” about these tides. If anything it’s all a little too familiar, something of a Greatest Hits of the Caribbean. But compared to the bloat of At World’s End, that might not be such a bad thing.
For one thing Depp appears to have reined Jack in a little. This time he comes across as more heroic, although still morally dubious and mincing, but the one-liners are spread more evenly throughout the story, thus increasing their effect and reducing the pantomime dame air that had irked a little during previous voyages.
New Captain/Director Rob Marshall has also addressed the plot issues, creating a more linear narrative as apposed to Verbinski’s wayward compass. It still clumsily goes from set-piece to set-piece, but at least the audience can understand what’s going on this time.
There are some welcome creative touches too. The mermaids are a wonderful addition to proceedings; rendered brilliantly and with juxtaposition between their beauty and their evil intentions; it’s the stuff of Brothers Grimm fairytales. They are also at the centre of the film’s most impressive sequence, during which a boat full of unsuspecting grog-swiggers are picked off by the submerged seductresses.
Of the new crew members, McShane hardly makes any kind of impression as the supposedly threatening Blackbeard, failing to usurp the brilliance of Rush’s returning Barbossa. Cruz on the other hand brings some welcome sex appeal, sassy one liners, and a well overdue love interest for Sparrow
On Stranger Tides only really struggles due to the overriding feeling that the whole escapade is completely unnecessary; always feeling like a “spin-off” with a plot lifted from Raiders of the Lost Ark, and any number of other “get the map, find the maguffin” movies. Having said that, this is one Pirate movie that I’d still recommend.
love to know what you think of some of my work and music videos 
