"Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" review

This past week, I saw what had to be one of the most delightful cinematic moments of the year. Never in a theater since seeing Toy Story 3 last June have a had such an explosion of happiness watching something in a theater and I have to thank Disney for bringing such satisfaction two summers in a row.

But enough about the teaser for The Muppets, let's move on to the movie that teaser was attached to: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. To recap quickly, in 2003, we got the first Pirates movie: The Curse of the Black Pearl, which was a lot of fun and a big hit for the Mouse. In 2006, we got the underwhelming but still satisfying Dead Man's Chest, which became Disney's highest-grossing film ever. In 2007, we got At World's End, a convoluted three-hour mess which consisted of continuous abandoned plots. It seemed we would never get a true Pirates movie again after that, yet, here we are four years later and Johnny Depp is back as Captain Jack Sparrow.

Honestly, On Stranger Tides continues the downward spiral of these Pirates movies. While Johnny Depp is top notch as usual, the film suffers from the same problem that the two previous sequels had. It's plot becomes too convoluted and tries to shove too much in at once. The returning players, Geoffrey Rush and Kevin McNally also try to give their all and these three characters are what makes this movie close to working.

In terms of the new players, Penelope Cruz as Angelica, Jack's love interest, really didn't do much for me. It annoyed me that they tried to set her up as being an established character in the Pirates franchise when she clearly was not. But for what it's worth she's okay. Ian McShane as Blackbeard seems to like what he's doing but he seems a bit underwhelming as well. The rest of the characters are a mixed bag but the three returning leads completely overshadow the other characters.

While On Stranger Tides does have some timing problems (the film runs 128 minutes, the shortest of the franchise, but still feels pretty long) but for what it's worth there is a bit happening that makes it worth the length. Some of the aspects seemed a bit silly (am I the only one who thought the vampire mermaids were beyond stupid?) but I'll put it to you this way: if you like the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, feel free to go see this movie. But it's really nothing special. Easily one of the year's weakest but it's still worth your time, it is Pirates of the Caribbean after all.

And if you want to know, no, I didn't see this movie in 3D, but trying to get a mental image of the 3D, it's not really needed at all. Considering the movie was shot in 3D, it plays perfectly fine without it.