Rating: 5/10
Running Time: 137 minutes
US Certificate: PG-13 UK Certificate: 12A
Argh, shivver me timbers, not another one. Four years after the already tired Dead Man’s Chest extended the Pirates of the Caribbean cancer riddled life-span, Warner Brothers have decided to revive a franchise that seemed to be dead in the water. Unsurprisingly, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is not a highly original jewel of a movie but another reason for us to never to see Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) and company in an original movie ever again.
POTC4 sees Captain Jack Sparrow crossing a beautiful woman (Cruz) from his past who sets him on an adventure to find the fabled Fountain of Youth before the ruthless pirate Blackbeard (McShane) and his daughter (Berges-Frisbey) can get their slightly grubbier mits on it. The question is; is it love for Sparrow or is his young lady out to con him?
Johnny Depp does his usual drunken mincing which feels less and less impressive ad refreshing as time goes on. It would probably be like seeing Heath Ledger’s Joker reprising his role time and time again, so every cloud has a silver lining, I suppose. Penelope Cruz does what she does best (and seemingly only does) and acts as flirty, vivacious and Spanish as she naturally can. The there’s the rest of the cast who ably ‘argh’ and ‘matey’ their way through to cash their paycheques.
Frankly, the fourth instalment is a bit of a mess. A series of escalating set-pieces try to out-do the star power as Marshall flip-flops between doing something completely different and going down the path well trodden but neither way is done satisfactorily enough. POTC4 just goes to show that when it looks like it’s dead, just bash it with an oar an throw it back in the sea.
It's Got: Boring big budget action, Captain Jack Sparrow back for his paycheque
It Needs: To have never been made
Summary
Pirates of the Caribbean: Seriously That’s Enough Now. No longer fun or original and a bit of a mess of competing egos and escalating but boring action sequences.