Eight years ago, a swashbuckling tale of pirates and plunder led by
Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush burst upon movie screens, launching what
turned into an epic trilogy. Depp's turn as the eccentric, perpetually
inebriated Captain Jack Sparrow kept audiences coming back for more, and
all three movies had their share of exhilarating sequences.
But
after the pitch-perfect mix of adventure, comedy and romance that
marked the first film, the franchise started to take itself a little too
seriously, introducing an unwieldy hodgepodge of characters and
plotlines, some of which came crashing to rather calamitous conclusions.
It seems that director Gore Verbinksi and the small band of
screenwriters forgot that Pirates of the Caribbean was, first and
foremost, supposed to be fun. Several of the same screenwriters returned
for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, directed by Rob Marshall. This time around, they remembered.
On Stranger Tides
brings back only four characters from the original trilogy (well, five,
if you count a certain psychotic formerly undead monkey). Naturally,
Depp, the true star of the franchise, returns as the wily Jack, and he's
just as entertaining as ever. Even after all this time, the character
is wildly unpredictable; sometimes he's blatantly self-serving, while at
other times he shows surprising scruples.
Rush is also back as
Captain Barbossa, who now is a privateer in the British Navy, which
often puts him at odds with Jack, though circumstances will force them
to work together before all's said and done. Kevin McNally is the first
familiar face we see, and while his role as Jack's faithful mate Gibbs,
now forced to sail with Barbossa, is often comical, it also furnishes a
couple of genuinely tender moments. Keith Richards only shows up for a
few minutes, but it's fun to see him again as Jack's father.
I
was a little worried that it might be hard to get used to a big new cast
of characters, but the movie is so much more straightforward than the
second and third, I didn't find it hard to juggle at all. The plot?
Spanish sailors rescue a man who claims to have seen the Fountain of
Youth. The Spanish scramble to find this legendary location. The British
get wind of it, and King George – a hilariously ludicrous Richard
Griffiths – orders an expedition of his own, led by Barbossa. Meanwhile,
Jack meets up with Angelica (Penelope Cruz), a former nun in training
who took up piracy after he seduced and then spurned her. She is first
mate on yet another search for the fountain, this one led by the
notorious Blackbeard (Ian McShane), who she claims is her father. She
wants Jack on her ship, and she won't take no for an answer.
What
we have, then, is a race among the Spanish, Barbossa, and Blackbeard.
Each leader has reasons for wanting to reach the fountain, and they
aren't necessarily what you would think. A good chunk of the movie
intercuts between Barbossa, who has become too genteel for Gibbs and not
nearly genteel enough for his uniformed officers, and Blackbeard. Since
Jack is with the pirates, our primary focus is there, so we get to know
the saucy Angelica; the dangerous but seemingly bored Blackbeard, who
exerts absolute control over most of his crew; and the virtuous Philip
(Sam Claflin), a clergyman with a relentlessly compassionate outlook. We
also meet Scrum (Stephen Graham), who replaces Pintel and Ragetti as
chief comic relief among the secondary pirates.
Grave challenges
lie in wait for all of the characters on the gorgeous but treacherous
island where the Fountain of Youth is hidden – and to get there, they
need to navigate through a pod of vampire mermaids that make the
shrieking eels from The Princess Bride look like a walk in the
park. Only one of these alluring ladies sticks around long enough to do
more than give me nightmare fodder for weeks to come; Spanish actress
Astrid Berges-Frisbey brings an exotic, ethereal air to the role of
Syrena, the mermaid Blackbeard captures to help him perform the
complicated ritual that will lead to the restoration of his youth.
The
action is fast-paced and pervasive, but the movie almost never feels
truly dark or violent. Light-hearted is the order of the day, with
occasional breaks for some moral ponderings by Jack, Philip and a couple
of others. As usual, Jack gets most of the best lines, and they ought
to be funnier if you've seen the previous movies, but Depp's delivery is
so impeccable that I doubt it matters much. Dizzying fight sequences
abound, and every time I heard the swelling of Hans Zimmer's epic score,
now doubly ingrained thanks to its inclusion in The Lonely Island and
Michael Bolton's recent viral video, I found it hard to resist swinging
my invisible sword in time to the music. (Hey, there had to be some
advantage to getting stuck in the front row – lots of arm space!)
I loved Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. The beautifully filmed On Stranger Tides,
replete with witty dialogue and brilliant sight gags, recaptures the
magic of that first installment. The conclusion does not demand a
sequel, but it certainly leaves the door open, and I've heard talk of
another trilogy. That seems excessive. But if they stick with the tone
that makes this one such a treat, you can bet I'll be watching and
raising my phantom sword in triumph.
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