Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

Please don't spend money on this.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

For the not so demanding movie goer this might be just enough to be entertained, for anyone slightly more choosy this film is rather lame to say the least. Most elements are foreseeable, while poorly acted and story-wise unnecessary in parts. This movie is Hollywood by the numbers, an overly long fast food production without real content and an offense to the previously established characters and franchise. If you are watching this to see another part of the franchise, this might work for you. If you're watching this, expecting a good pirate movie with twists and turns and witty dialogues, you will be disappointed.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is the fourth installment in the Pirates franchise and one of the most interesting. Based on Tim Powers novel "On Stranger Tides" this fourth movie of Pirates brings some adventure and weirdness to the series. Many years after the events of "At Worlds End" I am told this story happens 13 years after At Worlds end and Five before Dead Men Tell No Tales in the time line of the series. Captain Jack Sparrow is looking for the Fountain of Youth, his search takes him to London England where he meets Captain Barbossa who is now a Privateer in the Kings Navy (We assume that) and a lover from his past, Angelica. Angelica convinces Jack to help her look for the Fountain of Youth, albeit some poison dart convincing. Jack is suddenly brought into the search on board captain Blackbeard's ship The Queen Anne's Revenge. There Jack discovers Angelica is Blackbeard's lost daughter (or is she?) and his crew is made up of Zombies. I feel this pirates is more of an exploration movie then a straight out pirates film, I feel it's like an Indiana Jones movie combined with Pirates of the Caribbean. The Scenery which was mostly filmed on the Hawaiian Islands is beautiful. All of the Pirates movies have some sort of supernatural theme to them, this one in my view has the most supernatural element of them all. It follows Tim Powers book pretty well, but not so well it's a cinematic copy. What I like about this pirates is they bring the fabled Fountain of Youth into the story, along with voodooism, Zombies, and I really liked the Mermaids in this, the film portrays them as what legend truly makes them out to be, monsters that eat unsuspecting sailors. I like how it's also sort of a race between three groups Blackbeard's crew and Jack, Barbossa's English Navy Crew, and The Spanish Crew. This story focuses more on Jack, don't get me wrong I love Will and Elizabeth and I loved how they brought them back in the fifth installment. But it's cool how they made a story based just on Jack, he is after all the main character of the series. I also liked how they brought a former woman from his past into the picture, that being said, I wish they would have explained more about Jack's and Angelica's past together, why he left her? And why she bears him a hateful grudge? It does explain some of that here but not so much to make it more interesting. Blackbeard, he is an alright villain, he ranks number 4 on my pirates villain's list above Lord Beckett who is the worst on my list and after Barbossa in the first film. What I got out of Blackbeard was his ruthlessness and wickedness and he possesses a magical sword that can control his ship, which is cool. Other then that he seems to plain to me, and I don't see why Angelica wanted him as a father, maybe to do her dirty work? I really liked his Zombie crew though. Jack, Barbossa, and Gibbs are the only returning characters from the three previous films, all the rest are new. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is a fun adventurous film, it isn't my favorite of the pirates films but I do like it and enjoy it. Watching it you get this feeling of exploration and discovery just like an Indiana Jones movie. 10/10 for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. "There be mermaids upon us within the hour mark my words"

I enjoyed the first two movies. They were great fun. I thought At World's End was middle of the road. But this film, I'm sorry if you liked it, I really hated it. I didn't think it would be THAT boring. I mean Good lord! If there's one thing a movie with a charismatic protagonist, swashbuckling pirates, epic sword fights, fun plundering scenes, and ghoulish villains should not be, it's boring.The mermaids were completely unnecessary, the tone was disjointed, the pacing was bad, the characters were all over the place. This movie is a rough one to sit through for me.

'We're all back together again!' Jerry Bruckheimer (Producer) tells the audience in a featurette. And it feels that the main purpose for this movie was some kind of reunion, because it was fun for them to make the first three.Gore Verbinski is not directing this anymore. And it shows. There is nothing particular memorable about this movie in style or direction. They kept the DOP from the previous movies and the movie is still beautifully shot. When I went to the cinema expecting nothing of the movie (because every story finished nicely at the end of the third movie) I was still entertained. Upon re-watching it, boredom struck. The movie's basic structure is like this: Here you have characters, they need to do these things, okay let's do these things, movie end. It's narratively speaking quite straight forward and therefore the movie doesn't feel pretentious or bloated. What does bother me is that the characters are so uninteresting and what happens during the movie is also quite uninteresting. The movie lost the grandeur of the previous entries.Hey Jerry! What did you say? 'Blackbeard is one of the most evil characters we have ever given you?' Nah, sorry to burst your bubble but the only positive thing about the Blackbeard character is that he is played by Ian McShane. McShane does everything to make the character interesting, because the script is lacking. Blackbeard is really boring and underdeveloped. The second and third movies had time to develop their villains, whereas this movie did not take it's time or tried to bother. Probably because this movie was meant to be the Johnny Depp Show! I'm not even going to mention the forced love-couple in this movie, because that was laughable. The Penelope Cruz character was a nice addition though and she was OK. Johnny himself was not that memorable. He was more on repeat of what he did in previous entries, but now he was the main focus of the movie. But, overall, the highlights of the movie were the Mermaid scene and Geoffrey Rush's Barbossa. (he always looks like he's having fun with the character he plays) You can decide for yourself if that's worth your time to go see this movie. Lower your expectations. It helps!