movies: pirates of the caribbean: on stranger tides

It's traditional that we go and see each of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies in Gold Class (well, except for the first one), and since Number 4 in the series Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides was also in 3D, we did that too...

I supposed the first to say about PotC:OST is whether it stacks up to it's three predecessors...

And the answer is a little bit yes and a little bit no.

Yes, because Captain Jack Sparrow is back in all his glory, and the story is fun and rollicking and although the movies runs for 136 minutes, it didn't really feel like it... at no point was I thinking about the time, I was very much in the moment.

No, because it's not as much fun as the previous adventures. Whether that's because the story isn't wholly original and is based of another story that just wasn't as fun and funny, I'm not sure... but the tone of this film just feels darker and less comedic than the others. And I did feel the lack of certain characters... Pintel and Ragetti, Norrington, even Mr Cotton and his parrot... but mostly, after having watched all the first three movies back to back on Sunday, I miss Elizabeth Swan. Because I've never really liked Penélope Cruz...

And young Mr Claflin is pretty enough, but he's not Orlando.

The other thing missing from this movie was a sense of the stakes... sure, things are mentioned, but they don't seem particularly important to any of the characters... not in the same way that things are at stake in the original movies.

There also isn't the emotional investment in the new characters that I felt right from the beginning of the other movies... a lot of their motives seem to be somewhat tenuous and theoretical... salvation, atonement, etc.

I was also struck by the sense that some of the plot resolution was already pointed squarely at a potential sequel.

Having said all of that, there's Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow which goes a long way... Sam Claflin takes his shirt off eventually... there's swashing and buckling and mermaids and whatnot...

And it kept me entertained for the whole running time, which shouldn't be underestimated.

But part of me does hope that they leave it here... I don't know that we need another two movies.

yani's rating: 2 bottled ships out of 5