This is a new feature I'd like to run through the course of what will be the best summer ever for Joey's blog! My friend, Olivia, or Livi, would love to rant about things I've reviewed, whether she agrees with them or disagrees with them. So she'll offer her second thoughts about things that I've previously reviewed
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Second Thoughts
The first indication that the movie was going to be anything but original was the music. It was pretty much the exact same as the music from the movie's predecessors. And therein lies the problem - it was the EXACT SAME. Oh, I know, series in a movie tend to keep to the same 'theme' so when a person hears it, she or he immediately recognizes that this music = this movie and makes the connection. Unfortunately, sometimes this tends to backfire, as it did in the case of POTC: On Stranger Tides. You see, POTC was so wildly popular that every band or orchestra concert simply HAD to play the music. Everywhere you went, you heard Jack's Theme and The Medallion. By the time I sat down to the fourth movie and was forced to endure a few hours listening to basically the same thing, I wanted to grab my own pistol and blow my brains out. Hans Zimmer is a great composer, but he failed spectacularly at making this score original. In fact, I have doubts he even tried to make it original. It's like they took all of the scores in the past, added some more choir parts, turned up the volume and called it done. In a shining example of a series music done right, the Harry Potter music has changed a lot since the first movie. John Williams was the initial composer who came up with the tune that we all associate with the Harry Potter films. But did it stay this way? No! By the sixth movie, the theme had been expanded and the music changed just enough to keep it fresh while at the same time touching on those familiar chords. Disney should be on their knees begging the Warren Brothers to teach them musical theory for soundtracks.
Every character had a set personality from the start and by George they kept to it! Jack was a trickster, Blackbeard was evil, Gibbs was blindly loyal, and Barbossa was pretty much the same from the last few movies. Screw character development, this is Pirates of the Freaking Caribbean! Throw a flashy sword fight in and no one will notice the utter lack of character growth, I swear! Some may argue that Phillip, the kindly priest, had some characterization going on there, but only a very small degree - all he did was change his mind that Blackbeard wouldn't be able to be 'saved' at all. And that was because he had fallen in love (predictably) with the first mermaid who garnered pity from the audience. Don't tell me you didn't see that one coming. Angelica wasn't characterized either. She had one motivation : to save poor Daddy Dear's soul. She is also more forgiving and tries to protect the crew to a degree, but that's basically it. She's a more dynamic character than the others, but still stays the same throughout the movie.
Thanks to all of the flat characters, it was easy to see some of the things that were going to happen. Luckily there were still enough twist to keep the movie interesting, but it was no Sherlock Holmes. Every other scene had someone holding someone at gunpoint/knife/pointy thing at their throat, and after the three movies of this going on, it's just not as effective anymore. And all of the fight scenes got boring. POTC outdid themselves in the third movie when Jack, Will, and Barbossa have a three-way duel on a moving wheel of doom. Compare that to barrels falling down, and yeah, sure, impressive, but really....not. At the end I was wishing the fighting would stop. Just nuke the place and hurry up with the damn plot! The ending of the movie killed a bit of my soul as well when I watched Johnny Depp walk along the beach and deliver a perfectly cliche speech with a perfectly cliche parting line : "...it's a pirate's life for me." Can anyone say, "CHEESY"?
The movie had some redeeming points, however. The actors did a great job performing, even if their roles were constricted. The minor characters did a wonderful job : a few of the crew members caught my interest more than the main characters at time. Penelope Cruz was an excellent Angelica, and sometimes overshadowed Depp during some scenes. The chemistry paled in comparison to Knightly and Bloom's, but was passable for a movie labeled in the Action genre. The humorous banter between the two seemed natural, and Jack continued to make me laugh throughout the movie.
The special effects should be appreciated as well. POTC always had some very convincing and realistic effects, and the special effects crew gave their all on this one. The mermaid issue as far as the whole 'walking on land' thing was taken care of smoothly, and the mermaids' tails look great.
Overall, with those in mind, the movie turned out to be disappointing and not as good as the first three. It had some cool points to it, but if you do go to see it, don't expect anything better some witty quips and fancy dueling.
Overall: 3.0/5.0
