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Pirates of the Caribbean:
On Stranger Tides
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
Fish, Horses, Dogs, Chicken, Pigs, Kissing.
At World's End was wildly overdramatic for the movies that birthed it and I'd just come away with the same complaints that I had with the first two movies: Too much Swan and William.
So here we are with the first spin-off movie featuring Jack Sparrow front and center and with the most popular complaint, Swan and Will, nowhere to be seen... people claim this is weakest of the movies?
Frankly, I am not in agreement. I wouldn't seriously consider it better than 1 or 2, but it's a solid step above 3 at the very least.
A series of episodic adventures featuring Jack Sparrow is exactly what these movies should have been, but alas, I'll admit, he does wear little thin in this movie.
The movies opens fantastically and closes in a similar manner, both in square doses of genuine humor, however it's the 2nd act that seems to drain most heavily on the movie, I would say largely due to an excessive amount of exposition.
In the previous movies exposition was naturally drawn out through character interactions, they each find themselves in pressing circumstances and they fight each other, strike bargains, and logically arrive at conclusions which drive the plot forward. You plainly can see this in the first movie when Jack and Will are alone on a ship and Will draws his sword on Jack for suggesting his father is a pirate. Even though the example is a relatively obtuse matter of hanging Will over the water and having Jack talk at him, this is scene is still accomplishing more than one goal; it's not just telling us that Will's dad was a pirate, it's also telling us what Will and Jack think of him as well showing how both of them can come to a tentative alliance despite their animosity towards one another, not by telling us, but by showing us.
In On Stranger Tides there's just too much one person explaining the story to another person.
Fortunately the second act is at least home to the mermaid scene which I think surprised the **** out of everybody who thought it was just as silly as it sounds. DON'T **** WITH MERMAIDS, DUDE.
Unfortunately the true silliness comes in the form of the bizarre inclusion of The Cleric character. I get that there's a recurring theme of wanting to redeem Blackbeard and that the Spanish actually just want to destroy the Fountain of Youth out of religious disdain, but this guy spends the majority of his screentime hitting up a mermaid for an interspecies romance. And it's ****in' weird.
Blackbeard himself is a fine villain on his own, but I've also thought that Davy Jones is a hard act to follow, so while he pulled his own weight it feels cheap that they gave him superpowers for no reason other than what I assume is an attempt to make him feel somewhat as threatening as what passed for The Grim Reaper in the previous movies.
He can telekinetically control his ship with his sword, he has zombified crewmen, and he can harm people through voodoo dolls. NONE of this is previously established and Whatsherface's prophecy is entirely unexplained too.
In fact, as much as I can't remember the name of Whatsherface, she was a marked step above Swan as the female lead which is ironic because they literally refer to her as a "damsel" and she never really fulfills those criteria in my book.
Uncle Vernon from Harry Potter makes an amusing appearance, Barbossa takes a... questionable character shift from pirate captain to navy captain only to go pirate again by the end of the movie and you know what? Gibbs doesn't get enough love. He's a fun side character.
Again, the ending is great with Sparrow having more than one great moment including a genre-savvy Logic Bomb where he outright stops a fight to ask why it is anyone but the main characters are fighting, but there is one issue I picked out:
How is that with as much exposition that this movie managed to cram in that it never once established whether or not it was the Mermaid's tear that made the Fountain's water give life or take it?
Feels weak, but even the obvious twist is pulled off to satisfaction when the music drops out. Lookin' forward to Dead Men Tell No Tales, but so long as you're draggin' in all these animals don't expect me at the theater.
Final Verdict: [Pretty Good]
Pirates of the Caribbean:
On Stranger Tides
Fantasy Adventure Comedy / English / 2011
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
For the Action Movie Countdown.
N-HA! You thought I'd watch At World's End, right? Nah, **** that movie's boring, let's watch On Stranger Tides. Reassessorama!
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
N-HA! You thought I'd watch At World's End, right? Nah, **** that movie's boring, let's watch On Stranger Tides. Reassessorama!
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
"If I don't kill a man every now and then, they forget who I am."
Fish, Horses, Dogs, Chicken, Pigs, Kissing.
At World's End was wildly overdramatic for the movies that birthed it and I'd just come away with the same complaints that I had with the first two movies: Too much Swan and William.
So here we are with the first spin-off movie featuring Jack Sparrow front and center and with the most popular complaint, Swan and Will, nowhere to be seen... people claim this is weakest of the movies?
Frankly, I am not in agreement. I wouldn't seriously consider it better than 1 or 2, but it's a solid step above 3 at the very least.
A series of episodic adventures featuring Jack Sparrow is exactly what these movies should have been, but alas, I'll admit, he does wear little thin in this movie.
The movies opens fantastically and closes in a similar manner, both in square doses of genuine humor, however it's the 2nd act that seems to drain most heavily on the movie, I would say largely due to an excessive amount of exposition.
In the previous movies exposition was naturally drawn out through character interactions, they each find themselves in pressing circumstances and they fight each other, strike bargains, and logically arrive at conclusions which drive the plot forward. You plainly can see this in the first movie when Jack and Will are alone on a ship and Will draws his sword on Jack for suggesting his father is a pirate. Even though the example is a relatively obtuse matter of hanging Will over the water and having Jack talk at him, this is scene is still accomplishing more than one goal; it's not just telling us that Will's dad was a pirate, it's also telling us what Will and Jack think of him as well showing how both of them can come to a tentative alliance despite their animosity towards one another, not by telling us, but by showing us.
In On Stranger Tides there's just too much one person explaining the story to another person.
Fortunately the second act is at least home to the mermaid scene which I think surprised the **** out of everybody who thought it was just as silly as it sounds. DON'T **** WITH MERMAIDS, DUDE.
Unfortunately the true silliness comes in the form of the bizarre inclusion of The Cleric character. I get that there's a recurring theme of wanting to redeem Blackbeard and that the Spanish actually just want to destroy the Fountain of Youth out of religious disdain, but this guy spends the majority of his screentime hitting up a mermaid for an interspecies romance. And it's ****in' weird.
Blackbeard himself is a fine villain on his own, but I've also thought that Davy Jones is a hard act to follow, so while he pulled his own weight it feels cheap that they gave him superpowers for no reason other than what I assume is an attempt to make him feel somewhat as threatening as what passed for The Grim Reaper in the previous movies.
He can telekinetically control his ship with his sword, he has zombified crewmen, and he can harm people through voodoo dolls. NONE of this is previously established and Whatsherface's prophecy is entirely unexplained too.
In fact, as much as I can't remember the name of Whatsherface, she was a marked step above Swan as the female lead which is ironic because they literally refer to her as a "damsel" and she never really fulfills those criteria in my book.
Uncle Vernon from Harry Potter makes an amusing appearance, Barbossa takes a... questionable character shift from pirate captain to navy captain only to go pirate again by the end of the movie and you know what? Gibbs doesn't get enough love. He's a fun side character.
Again, the ending is great with Sparrow having more than one great moment including a genre-savvy Logic Bomb where he outright stops a fight to ask why it is anyone but the main characters are fighting, but there is one issue I picked out:
How is that with as much exposition that this movie managed to cram in that it never once established whether or not it was the Mermaid's tear that made the Fountain's water give life or take it?
Feels weak, but even the obvious twist is pulled off to satisfaction when the music drops out. Lookin' forward to Dead Men Tell No Tales, but so long as you're draggin' in all these animals don't expect me at the theater.