Deutsche VersionPirates of the Caribbean 4
On thursday, I watched the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean Movie, subtitled On Stranger Tides for no obvious reason. As always when I write a blog about it, I wasn’t too impressed. So here is a little review. Beware: There will be spoilers. It’s OK, though, because this movie is not worth watching anyway.
Okay, that’s a bit extreme. The movie is okay entertainment, a nice thing to eat popcorn to. In fact, thinking back, most of my criticism concerns the part of the movie after my popcorn ran out. Make of that what you will. But if you happen to have any of the first three on DVD, in particular the first, then it’ll be much more fun and cheaper to just watch that again.
Epic fail
There are a number of reasons for that, partly centered around the plot, partly the characters. Perhaps most surprising, though, is that the movie lacks epicness. In the old ones, we had varied islands, ship battles, a three-way fight on a moving wheel and so on. Sure, it was over the top, but that’s what you watch those movies for. Number four, on the other hand, starts in a few sets apparently left over from that Sherlock Holmes movie with Iron Man. Then there’s a tiny bit of a plot on some ships where a battle almost happens, but is then cancelled because the movie accountants said no. Finally, everybody reaches the island where Oceanic Flight 815 crashed and stays there until the movie is over.
Now, gregorian London is nice, there are some good sword fights in there and a few larger fight scenes as well, but none of that is impressive enough when compared with the first movies. The jungle of Oahu is great, but after six seasons of Lost, hardly something completely new and unusual. In fact, it appears much more menacing in Lost, and when a TV show manages to make the same location appear better than a Jerry Bruckheimer movie, something went wrong.
Plotting
The Pirate of the Caribbean movies always seemed to think that a strong plot could be adequately approximated with just a lot of plot, leading to a scene in the second movie when the two comic relief characters have to explain what the hell is going on to the audience. Now the plot has been cut down so much that after about thirty minutes, you can understand all parts of it except the plot holes, and damn, it is boring.
New big evil pirate Blackbeard wants to go to the Fountain of Youth because he’s going to die. Old big evil pirate Barbossa wants to kill Blackbeard. Blackbeard’s long-lost but recently rediscovered daughter Penelope Cruz[^2] wants to save her father. Cpt. Jack Sparrow gets dragged along because he might know something about the Fountain of Youth (he actually doesn’t) and apparently because he is bored. Some unnamed spanish guys also look for the FoY, because the writers thought “Damn, all those movies we forgot the spanish armada!” and also because they need to act as a Deus Ex Machina later. Finally, there is a romance subplot between two minor characters. Not sure who crowbarred that in there, but it seems incredibly pointless.
[^2]: I think her character has a name. Might start with A. Not sure, though, and I don’t care either.
What truly bothers me is how little surprise there is. At the start of the journey, Blackbeard gives a plan how the movie will go, and everyone follows that plan and collects plot coupons until they can redeem them for the finale. There are some detours, but at no point does Blackbeard’s party have to change their actions at all.
Pirates and King’s Men
Now, normally I’d forgive a weak plot because the movie is a great spectacle and the characters are awesome. But the movie isn’t a great spectacle, and the characters… well, they fail too. All of their motivations for being in the movie are off-screen, and they might as well say “take my word for it”. Does Penelope Cruz love Blackbeard? She says she does, although we never quite see why, or whether he loves her. Is Barbossa’s quest to kill Blackbeard important? Well, Barbossa seems to think so, but since we never saw their first meeting, we just have to take his word for it. Weird considering how he never bothered to take revenge on the pirate who actually killed him before, i.e. Jack Sparrow. Jack in turn seems to be secretly in love with Penelope Cruz and vice versa, again due to a backstory where they were lovers. Showing a more human side of Jack by having him fall in love with someone new to him? Nah, too much work, let’s just assume these emotions exist already and don’t need any explanation. Fittingly, the movie always takes the longest possible time to show us a character’s actual face, trying to make us guess whether it is not Barbossa but actually, say, Worf from Star Trek who is about to enter the room. For the record, I’m not sure if that would have made a better movie, but at least it would have been new.
Captain Jack should, normally, be the heart and soul of the movie. Always a mystery but at the same time funny, and always with an agenda and a plan, he manages to surprise us at every turn. Well, except here. During the London part of the movie, we see some of his great escapes… as well as a detailed description of how he will do them beforehand, by showing all the important elements clearly on screen for a few seconds so that everybody gets it. Once the ships and hence the movies really start going, Jack becomes totally ineffectual. Usually always in command of his own destiny and hence the plot, he has now been shanghaied onto Blackbeard’s ship and remains under his control to the end. After a mutiny is cut short by Blackbeard arriving on the scene (because you know that a mutiny has officially lost once the captain has noticed it), he does not even attempt to escape anymore, and it becomes quite perplexing why he stays around. He does not want Blackbeard to live and he seems to like Penelope Cruz, and he wants some MacGuffin Blackbeard owns, but neither explains why he so readily complies with anything that happens to him.
Blackbeard, of course, is the real star of the movie. Oh, sure, the movie tries very hard to tell us that he is evil, but he never does anything particularly evil by pirate standards. Selfish, yes, but evil? His worst actions are killing a single of the mutineers, and even that not with at least a chance to save himself, and almost shooting his daughter to get Jack to do something, although he tries to not let her know that. None of that is nice, but both could have been as easily done by Barbossa or in fact Jack, and those are supposed to be the good guys here. Blackbeard is also quite successful, right until a scene at the end that was ripped off almost verbatim from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
What can be said against Blackbeard is that he carries the idiot ball quite a few times. No characters are safe from it, but Blackbeard really causes some head-scratching. He goes through extremely great trouble to capture a mermaid, one of the plot coupons needed later. But when she almost dies and then can’t walk on her own, he threatens to kill her, because apparently he forgot that she was a huge investment, and to show that he is evil again. The idiocy gets so much at points that Jack Sparrow has to point it out, and I don’t think Johnny Depp should be the voice of reason in a Pirates movie.
The other characters remain fairly minor. If you had watched the trailer, you’d have thought Penelope Cruz was supposed to a worthy opponent to Jack Sparrow. But with three male pirates already, obviously the woman can’t be important. She never takes charge in anything, but always listens to her father who makes all the important decisions. Meanwhile, in any direct confrontation between her and Jack Sparrow, Jack wins unless she has help from others. Feminists should be outraged; personally I think it’s offensively boring, and a great opportunity completely wasted. Barbossa, meanwhile, seems to be ready to retire to his villa in London just as soon as he got that problem of Blackbeard over with. With a new position in the british royal navy, and generally not much to do, he manages for the first time to see truly old, instead of just look old.
Finally, there is the love story, between a missionary (captured by Blackbeard) and a mermaid, and it is baffling how anyone ever thought this was good or appealing. Maybe it’s some secret test and this blog post proves that I didn’t get that this was all a parody of Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley. His character can be summed up as “is a priest”, “tries to be righteous”. I really think he never gets a name. He certainly does not have a backstory or in fact any reason we should care about him. Clergymen can be interesting characters, as anyone who saw Firefly or V knows, but this opportunity is completely wasted. Moral guidance to any of the characters? Improbable fighting skills against the abominations from hell? Personal conflict between his belief that everything is good and the reality of the pirates around him? Way too difficult, let’s just have him kiss a mermaid!
The mermaid, meanwhile, literally does not have a name until the priest gives her one (Syrena), because nothing says symmetrical relationship like one owing her individuality to the other. Her character is just as blank. The movie shows that mermaids are soulless and largely mindless killer creatures, and only tells us that she is different, without explaining how. As it is, she has three traits: She can show a bit of compassion; she is a damsel in distress; and finally, she looks good when wet and naked. I really, really have a hard time believing the missionary when he says that it is number one that attracted him to her.
Fun. Remember fun?
What is lacking from that list are comic relief characters. Not surprising, though, because most of the comedy is gone. Jack Sparrow still makes the occasional joke, but most of the other characters seem to think that their plot is serious and relevant, which it isn’t.
The verdict
Most of what was good about the old movies is gone. Nothing good new has been added. The movie does set up a sequel or two, but I’m not going to watch them. Mind you, it was not a bad experience, but I can’t recommend it either.
Written on May 23rd, 2011 at 11:29 am
