Avast ye Scallywags, thar be new Pirates ahead.
Grab your seats, class is in session.
The Professor made a trip out this weekend to take in a new flick. As if you couldn’t guess, this week was:
Yar.
I was a big fan of the first movie, Curse of the Black Pearl. At the time, it was a new idea, brought back the innate love of pirates just about everyone has, and introduced us to one of Johnny Depp’s best on-screen characters, Cap’n Jack Sparrow. Constantly over the top, serious as the grave when necessary, and a completely lovable bastard. The proverbial “hooker with the heart of gold.” Great pirate story, typical Disney majesty , overall fun movie.
I enjoyed the second movie as well, Dead Man’s Chest. As with most sequels, I didn’t think it was as good as the first, but it still had some of the same magic the first movie had. It also added some tremendous new characters and actors and even improved on the visuals from the first movie. One thing you can always count on Disney for, the next one will always look that much better. Again, a decent, fun movie.
The third one, At World’s End, well…I didn’t hate the third one, but I wasn’t a huge fan either. I thought the story for the third movie really went off the rails in a lot of places and tried to do way too much. Like I said, I didn’t hate the third movie, but when my favorite part was the arrival of Keith Richards playing Jack Sparrow’s father, that probably says enough. Plus, as far as the ending of World’s End, I must share what I said out loud when I saw it: “Uh…really? THAT’S how they end it, after 3 movies? Weird.”
Ok, so, now we come to the new movie, On Stranger Tides. This is not really a continuation, but you could make a case for it. Personally, I wouldn’t call it a sequel so much as a new story with the same main movie name tag. Yeah, it has some very minor story carryovers, such as the map Jack acquires in World’s End, Jack’s father, Barbossa, and Jack himself, but really that’s it. Even the Barbossa character is new. Same person, same actor, but in a new form, as it were. If you see it, you’ll follow what I mean. Might be better to call it a new attitude.
That’s it. Those are the only connections to the previous movies and honestly, that’s a good thing. Once you hit three movies, trying to keep the same exact cast in the same exact type of story just gets old. Yeah, there are a few movies that have done this, but unless it’s a Kevin Smith movie, a Die Hard movie, or Harry Potter, it doesn’t really work. And if you try to tell me it doesn’t work for Kevin Smith either, I’ll bite your face. Thou shalt not badmouth Silent Bob on the Professor’s blog.
Anyway, there isn’t much I can say about this movie without giving away the story. What I can say is, it’s not bad. It’s not great, but it’s not bad. It’s not as dark as the previous two, and I think that really helps it. I think if you are trying to pull people back in to a series, you need to give them a new story and take it different directions than before. This definitely does that. I only really have two complaints about the movie. One, the movie was too long. It runs over two hours and really didn’t need to. Two, the very forced love story. One of the things people loved about the first three was the love story between Will and Elizabeth. It added that extra storyline that gave you something else to watch for. This movie could have gotten away with just using the relationship between Cap’n Jack and Penelope Cruz’s character, Angelica. Unfortunately, they tried to drive another one into the movie, and to me, it just stuck out as unnecessary. Even still, it didn’t take away from the movie enough to bring it down completely.
The best parts of the movie were once again the things that make large scale Disney movies good: the cast and the visuals. The cast in this movie was great. Johnny Depp, of course, is just a tremendous actor and it’s almost impossible to not enjoy Cap’n Jack Sparrow. For me, there were really only three other actors that need mentioning. Geoffrey Rush as Barbossa is just like Geoffrey Rush in any other movie: awesome. It wouldn’t be the same series without him. Ian McShane joins the cast as Blackbeard and almost steals the movie. He is the perfect heartless pirate and a real joy to watch. The biggest surprise for me was probably Penelope Cruz. I was never a huge fan, but she’s very good in this movie. She is probably the perfect foil for Jack Sparrow. Should another Pirates movie come about (which I believe is planned) I wouldn’t be surprised to see her show again.
With regards to the visuals, I mean, what can I really say. It’s Disney. All the CGI is spot on perfect and amazing, and the sets/movie locations are phenomenal. There are a few scenes where you can find yourself ignoring the movie just to take in the gorgeous view around the players.
So, by now I’m sure you’ve all said “GET ON WITH IT! RATE THE MOVIE ALREADY!” Fine fine, stop shouting and I will. I swear, you people have no patience.
Bottom line: it’s a good movie. A definite worthwhile successor to the previous movies and worth going to the theater to see. However, I would also say it’s not one of those you HAVE to see in the theater. If you are the type who prefers to wait til DVD, you won’t have missed any experience not seeing it in the theater.
That’s all for now.
Class dismissed.
