Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides Sails on Winds of Hype – movie review

I love Johnny Depp, but the last Pirates of the Carribean movie I sort of liked was the second one, Dead Man’s Chest. After At World’s End left me thoroughly disappointed, I was slightly skeptical about watching the newest installment, On Stranger Tides. When sequels start to get bad, they rarely get any better, after all. However, I do enjoy Captain Jack Sparrow, and watching the PotC movies have become a bit of asummer tradition, so I decided to brave it and watch On Stranger Tides. My feelings towards the movie are mixed.

Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides is not the worst movie of the franchise, nor is it the best. In a way, it seems to be set up to allow new fans to watch the franchise without watching the previous three movies, in case someone has lived under a rock or been on another planet for the past 8 years, while at the same time assuming the audience has seen all three previous movies. It’s a strange middle ground. Of course, if you only ever saw the first Pirates of the Carribean movie, On Stranger Tides will make sense without the other sequels, as the references to the second and third movies are minimal.

The worst thing about Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides is the hype. There was no way it could live up to it, and the hype was more ridiculous given that At World’s End was horrible. The fact that the fourth installment was so overhyped is inconceivable to me, but then again, Captain Jack Sparrow is perhaps this generation’s most iconic character. Everyone recognizes him. Johnny Depp is also one of those actors people will watch movies he’s in just because he’s in them. The theater I went to made us line up outside the theater to wait to enter, which surprised me. While the movie was obviously a big deal, I never thought it was such a big deal that you had to run crowd control. I was wrong, in terms of crowd size, but what movie honestly lives up to that?

What I loved best about On Stranger Tides was that it was definitely better than At World’s End, and possibly better than Dead Man’s Chest. I feel like more time was spent on putting a story together this time around, and I never once exclaimed, “Wait, what? Did they throw that in there last minute?” That was a phrase I said a lot while watching the third installment. On Stranger Tides was a good old adventure story with mini-quests–the type of story that fans loved in the original Pirates of the Carribean. This movie had everything from romance and betrayal to action and mermaids that definitely do not meet the Disney archetype.

Of the stories in On Stranger Tides, I love Barbossa’s best, and it’s something that’s made obvious from early on in the movie. Barbossa is now a privateer working for the King, who’s on a quest to find the Fountain of Youth for the crown of England. It should not be at all surprising that he has ulterior motives. Barbossa’s relationship with Jack, though they seem to be on opposite sides, is greatly mended in this movie, and they only one or twice try to kill each other (and one of those times only half counts). The oddest story in the movie, to me anyway, is the story of the Spaniards. They’re also on the way to the Fountain of Youth, which is why England wants to find it. Of course, the Spaniards don’t wish to find it for the same reason that everyone else does. In hindsight, given the time period of the movie, the motives of the Spaniards make sense, and even in the movie it makes sense after the initial shock, but at first it seems to come out of nowhere.

If you’re a fan that’s stuck by the Pirates of the Carribean movies this far, even if the third one left you feeling burned, On Stranger Tides is worth watching. Of course it’s not as good as the original, but it’s refreshingly better than the other sequels. The hype devalues the movie, but at the same time the movie tells a good enough story that it can survive. It has all the elements that a PotC movie should, and on those grounds, I do recommend it – just after theaters stop using crowd control.