Pirates of the Caribbean 4 on Stranger Tides (2011)
Directed by Rob Marshall; written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, based on characters created by Mr. Elliott, Mr. Rossio, Stuart Beattie and Jay Wolpert, suggested by the novel by Tim Powers; director of photography, Dariusz Wolski; edited by David Brenner and Wyatt Smith; music by Hans Zimmer; production design by John Myhre; costumes by Penny Rose; produced by Jerry Bruckheimer; released by Walt Disney Pictures. Running time: 2 hours 7 minutes.
WITH: Johnny Depp (Jack Sparrow), Penélope Cruz (Angelica), Geoffrey Rush (Barbossa), Ian McShane (Blackbeard), Kevin R. McNally (Joshamee Gibbs), Astrid Bergès-Frisbey (Syrena), Sam Claflin (Philip Swift), Richard Griffiths (King George), Judi Dench (Society Lady), Keith Richards (Captain Teague) and Stephen Graham (Scrum).
ON STRANGER TIDES is one of the best PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN movies to date. There were some doubts going into this as two key characters from the original trilogy are missing, Will and Elizabeth Turner. While Will and Elizabeth added a lot to the first three films their absence in the fourth is hardly worth mentioning. A new cast mixed with many old favorites makes for a great story.
Full Movie Reviews:
It is fitting that what passes for a plot in “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” involves a search for the fountain of youth. This film, the fourth in a series that made its improbable and profitable leap from the theme park to the multiplex eight summers ago, represents an attempt to rejuvenate a flagging franchise.
Whether the effort was absolutely necessary is both an obvious and a naïve question. Why would the Walt Disney Company, which distributes these movies, and Jerry Bruckheimer, who produces them, ever want to leave well enough alone? In Hollywood, gratuitous excess — not necessity — is the mother of invention.
Not that “On Stranger Tides” is especially inventive. Gore Verbinski, who directed the first three installments with wanton energy, rococo visual flair and a flagrant disregard for narrative coherence, has been replaced by Rob Marshall, who specializes in turning well-loved pieces of popular art (“Chicago,” “Memoirs of a Geisha,” “Nine“) into tedious, literal-minded prestige movies. So while this picture is called “On Stranger Tides,” it is by far the least strange of all the “Pirates” episodes so far, with none of the cartoonish exuberance or creepy-crawly effects that made its predecessors intermittently delightful.
Mr. Verbinski, whose sensibility owes more to the naughty, anarchic Warner Brothers and MGM cartoons of the 1940s and ’50s than to the Disney tradition, made a successful transition to full-blown animation with “Rango,” which featured Johnny Depp as a lizard out of water. Mr. Depp, returning as Jack Sparrow in “Tides,” is very much in his aqueous, mischievous element, and he shows admirable professionalism in a project that often seems more like a rock-band reunion tour than a blockbuster movie sequel.
A lot of the original cast members and special guest stars have fallen away — Keith Richards shows up for a minute or two, less thrillingly than the last time — but the guys up front are still in good shape, and a few more old-timers have been recruited from elsewhere to add their seasoned chops.
Richard Griffiths has a fleshy, wiggy cameo as King George, and Judi Dench appears briefly as a lady in a carriage, but the movie belongs to the power trio of Mr. Depp, Geoffrey Rush (as his sometime nemesis Barbossa) and Ian McShane, who brings a floridly sinister death-metal-meets-“Deadwood” vibe to the role of Blackbeard.
Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom are hardly missed, as the filmmakers — Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio are the credited screenwriters — wisely turn the movie over to the gamy supporting players. There are a pair of young people in love, one of them a missionary (Sam Claflin), the other a mermaid (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey), but their wooing is incidental to the mugging and bellowing and occasional swordplay among Sparrow, Blackbeard and Barbossa. It’s almost as if a “Harry Potter” movie had dispensed with Harry, Ron and Hermione and devoted itself to documenting a meeting of the Hogwarts faculty.
But the name Jerry Bruckheimer in the opening titles mean that things must explode — a huge tank of whale oil, most memorably — and that there must be chases, crashes and leaps through the air. With an early exception involving a cream puff and a chandelier, these action sequences are handled more as instances of duty than occasions for play.
And I almost forgot to mention the 3-D, for good and bad reasons. The good one is that the format is mostly unobtrusive: you barely notice it unless a sword is sticking out of the screen or Penélope Cruz is moving toward the camera. Ms. Cruz, who starred with Mr. Depp in “Blow“ about 10 years ago, plays a former and possibly future flame of Jack Sparrow’s named Angelica, who may or may not be Blackbeard’s long-lost daughter.
“On Stranger Tides” never lives up to — or, for that matter, does anything to deserve — the recent parody tribute offered by Michael Bolton in a “Saturday Night Live” digital short, which emphasizes exactly the insouciant pop spirit that has slowly drained out of the “Pirates” juggernaut from one film to the next. It lives on in a few bon mots, and in a spooky, sexy sequence involving mermaids, whose pert, smooth tails are the only memorable piscine digital innovations on display here.
But like “Thor“ — which is, all in all, not quite as boring — “On Stranger Tides” is protected from the consequences of its own mediocrity by the mere fact that it is opening in thousands of theaters on Friday. People will go, and more energy will be expended parsing the box-office returns than discussing the merits of the film, which is likely to be judged entertaining enough and therefore, in the end, not much fun at all.
“Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Some fantasy-horror violence.
Source : http://www.nytimes.com
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