A big budget, big stars and big effects are, as we all know, meaningless if attached to a weak storyline – making PIRATES Numero Quattro in the end a muddled and predictable mess. Meant more as a money machine than a thought-provoking tale – and, as a reminder, this is a set of stories based on an amusement park ride – ON STRANGER TIDES is the first of the series to neither be directed by Gore Verbinski nor feature Orlando Bloom or Keira Knightley. But while veteran producer Jerry Bruckheimer and writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio remain on hand for director Rob Marshall’s (CHICAGO, NINE) directorial debut within the franchise, TIDES offers little that’s new to the series. It offers up the same pointless (pun) swordplay and hijinks-laden chases. And it lacks a consistent supernatural presence, which helped make THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL (2003) and DEAD MAN’S CHEST (2006) the most entertaining of the four films...
ON STRANGER TIDES suffers from a deeply convoluted plot, like its three predecessors. Someone is impersonating Jack Sparrow (Depp, reprising his Oscar-nommed role, and, at this point, too much of a good thing) to put together a crew to find the Fountain of Youth. Turns out it's his former flame, Angelica (Penélope Cruz, phoning it in). It's foretold that her father Blackbeard (Ian McShane, a wonderful actor but sorely underused here) will soon die, which she wants to prevent. But the group that eventually goes on the quest, which includes the kidnapped Sparrow, must secure a mermaid's tear for the fountain to do its magic – and in this film, mermaids are deadly creatures.
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