Stolen Treasure
In spite of my better judgement, or maybe even because of it, I have always found some portion of enjoyment in all of the Pirates of the Caribbean films. The first one is without a doubt the best, and I even say that between Johnny Depp’s three Oscar nominations, that is the film he should have won for. The two succeeding sequels are of lesser quality, obviously, with the second being overstuffed with action and the third being overly-complicated with endless plot. However, I’ve enjoyed pretty much all of the films with varying degrees. I can’t quite go that far with this film, which redeems itself with a streamlined plot but still indulges in numbing action.
As we all know, this is the fourth film in the surprisingly successful Disney franchise that’s inspired be a theme park ride, before that notion was commonplace. Depp is back once again in the role of the notorious and flamboyant Captain Jack Sparrow and he’s on the search for the Fountain of Youth. But we need people to contest his search, and among them are the returning Geoffrey Rush as Barbosa, now inducted into the British Navy, Ian McShane as the notorious Blackbeard, Penélope Cruz as Blackbeard’s daughter and old flame of Captain Jack, and the entire Spanish armada. It’s a crowded field indeed.
Say what you will about the Pirates sequels, but I think the reason they stayed afloat was because of the direction of Gore Verbinski. He knew how to juggle the massive storylines as well as craft some interesting notions out of the gigantic action spectacles. Rob Marshall might be a more honored filmmaker because of his directorial debut, but it’s abundantly clear that the goodwill from Chicago is all but gone. To be fair, his flashy musical tendencies can make for some interesting action scenes, but his touches feel lightly peppered in, and a lot of it becomes dull. He’s also another filmmaker who can’t optimize 3D at all, and despite starting off the film on a high note with a nicely staged breakout scene with Sparrow, it’s a series of diminishing returns with his direction combined with an even more useless script.
Sparrow has been reduced to nothing more than a paycheck for Depp at this point, so in trying to judge his performance, it’s nowhere near as fun as it was or ever will be. At this point, I just hope Depp can turn down some of his theatrics that went out of control in the last sequels, and to his credit he does. Still, I’m not every to get as much enjoyment out of Depp in these movies like I did from the first one. People like Cruz, McShane and Rush are scenery that aren’t worthy of anything in this film. Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly have been replaced by Sam Claflin as a captured missionary and Astrid Berges-Frisbey as the mermaid he falls in love with. The main problem here is that these characters are given hardly any backstory, making their participation feel stunted and unnecessary.
I’d definitely say that there are worse ways for you to spend your summer, but as it is now, I think there’s also better. There’s some interesting action scenes in here, and Depp isn’t quite as annoying as he used to be, but to be honest, this thing barely passes as a summer tentpole. Most of it is uninspired under the direction of Rob Marshall and it becomes rather dull and useless by the end. I have to say that this is the first Pirates film that I haven’t come to fully recommend, which is why I’ll probably be saying the same once the fifth one comes out.
C+
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