Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

It's as if someone has fixed your once-upon-a-time favorite theme park attraction for the fourth time. You’ll be entertained by old friends, at times you will be delighted by new ones, your eye will get tired of the effects, your ear will endure the moments when someone speaks and somehow you will partly laugh through it, and partly suffer through it to the end. The most significant feeling it will leave in you after you get out is that you were quite bored. PS: Half a day after watching it, all I remember is the raucous music, the perpetually drunk Depp, and Penelope’s cleavage. An elegant quarter-billion-dollar experience. (20/09/2011)

Ten minutes before the end of On Stranger Tides, I remembered that I was wearing 3D glasses and that the film was (probably) in 3D (it was an IMAX projection). And the only thing I will remember from this a month later is the mermaid scene. The rest is just fluff, exploiting the success of the franchise, the actors and Hans Zimmer’s music. I’m only giving it three stars because the film is playful and harmless. In terms of viewer experience, though, it deserves only two stars because it’s boring. How come so many makers of B-movies know how to come up with innovative and refreshing ideas, and the Hollywood elite behind this doesn’t? (19/05/2011)

Given the discreet aura of unsuccessful sequels, which unfairly burdened the second and third parts, a change on multiple fronts was probably the only solution. Gone is the escalating complexity of various intrigues or last-minute pulling of key characters out of the hat. And although I have always enjoyed this approach, I must admit that returning to the classic pirate escapade, in which Jack Sparrow mainly pulls the strings in key moments, is an idea worth all the money. Marshall's academic pedigree successfully builds upon Verbinski's legacy. (21/09/2011)

I really didn't expect such a bad outcome. An incredibly clichéd film where nothing really works. The action is dull and unremarkable, the actors are average, the editing is boring and meaningless, the plot is the overused cliché of “we form a team – sail towards the goal – we win or lose”. I don't even have to mention how these PG13 pirates look. The only thing worth watching is Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz. Now, asking 50 million for the main role also requires balls of iron. Rob Marshall is not a director for adventurous action films. Pirates # 4 is a huge piece of shit, and it's also overpriced and unnecessary. A purely money-driven film without a drop of love for the craft. (04/06/2011)

This didn’t seem any better or worse than the original pirate trilogy movies. I miss Keira, as well as those really expansive and bombastic shots, but this one is more about running through the jungle and Depp’s snappy lines. It’s true that the sequence where they try to capture the mermaids was definitely the best moment, a superb atmosphere and unexpected outcome. Blackbeard is a strange and unexceptional baddie. But this isn’t Ian McShane’s fault, but the script’s because he is exploited too little and if it wasn’t for Barbossa there would be very little happening on the villain storyline front. Otherwise, the 3D is rather low standard (the most shocking moment was the trailer for Transformers 3 before the main feature) and it is obvious that Marshall doesn’t really know how to use it. But Judy Dench’s cameo was nice. (08/06/2011)