As a big fan of the first movie I was (like most) disappointed with the sequels which followed to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, and I do confess I went to this fourth instalment not expecting great things. For this I am grateful, because I was actually relatively pleasantly surprised. The run-time on this movie is rather epic at a whopping 136 minutes and the shuffling in the seats around me suggested I wasn’t the only one who found that!
I was intrigued at what they might do with the character of Jack Sparrow, who after all is the main attraction to such a film only because he is played by the excellent Johnny Depp. Depp carried the film all the way through, and with a somewhat limited script did almost as convincing a job as in ‘The Curse of the Black Pearl’. The return of Geoffrey Rush as Captain Barbossa was a let-down; it is difficult not to compare after such an incredible performance from Rush in the King’s Speech (see review here) making us wonder why he went back to the franchise at all. His character development was poor from the previous films and he was not believable in his new role as Captain of the Guard in the British Navy. The addition of the beautiful Penelope Cruz as Angelica held both positive and negative points for me. It seemed her character was trying too hard to fit a preconceived ‘mould’ and the only way they came up with to develop her character was to ensure she ticked the ‘sex appeal’ box: a bit lame and too sexy for a kid’s film.
If the target audience is supposed to be teenagers or kids, this film is far too confusing and as I mentioned above, far too long! However it is not as confusing as it’s predecessor, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, which let’s be honest, was so bad that my brand new copy is still in its cellophane wrapper years later. One watch was too many.
Blink and you miss the few cameos in the film; they added interesting little anecdotes but were not hugely necessary to the storyline, nor really the opening London sequence. There were a few throw-backs to the other films, such as a fight sequence with Cruz reminiscent of Captain Sparrow and Mr Turner’s epic battle in The Curse of the Black pearl; similarly the dreaded Island was used again as a ‘drop off spot’ for not Sparrow, but Angelica this time. The return of Kevin McNally as Sparrow’s first mate, Gibbs was intrinsic to the storyline I guess, although not a hugely outstanding performance. The use of large and rather ugly pig was reminiscent of finding Gibb in the pigsty in #1, a little joyous moment perhaps for those loyal fans. Hans Zimmer did a great job with the original score of the movie but this latest instalment fails to offer anything new for us; however I really like the original Score so was not complaining!
On the whole if you don’t take this film too seriously I give it a 2.5 out of 5. It was entertaining and fun, and a scene to watch out for is the Mermaid sequence which is rather spectacular with stunts, live effects and amazing CG work. New character Astrid Berges-Frisbey was superb I thought, believable and sensitive to the storyline. The relatively attractive Sam Claflin as Philip over played the role of the clergyman a little too much, he came over as just a bit annoying and soppy.
Overall the production design was amazing, the ships were very cool but really, it was such a shame that this chance to reboot the franchise wasn’t capitalised with a better story as unfortunately I found it rather laborious from beginning to end!
A little tip – Do stay until the credits have ended ; it is just about worth the wait (after such a long period sitting in your movie seat) for a little surprise with a possible pointer to POTC5!
[Rating:2.5/5]
