If you're looking for a biased review, look elsewhere.
I want to start by saying that I was a HUGE fan of the first three Pirates movies. Judge if you want, but you can't deny that "Curse of the Black Pearl" made piracy and swashbuckling a little bit cooler.
So when I heard there was a fourth installment planned, of course I was ecstatic.
On Stranger Tides just does not feel like a Pirates movie. I thought that the exclusion of Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom's characters would be a welcome thought, but I quickly realized that people actually liked those characters.
Johnny Depp is always stellar as our favorite rum-swigging swashbuckler and Geoffrey Rush is still sublime as Hector Barbossa, but it felt like Penelope Cruz (Angelica) and Ian McShane's (Blackbeard) performances were a little phoned in.
Ian McShane as Edward Teach aka Blackbeard
Cruz and Depp had no chemistry whatsoever. Almost like watching two pieces of paper try to feed off of the other's ability.
Rob Marshall tried to gain a little bit more of that supernatural element we saw in
Curse of the Black Pearl, but there was too damn much going on. Zombiefied henchman? Vampire-esque mermaids? Blackbeard resurrects the dead? Let's get real. Granted, the movie centers around the search for the Fountain of Youth, but we don't need all these other tacked-on distractions.
And the soundtrack...it was all tracks from
Dead Man's Chest and
At World's End with tweaks and adjustments every now and again. Almost as if the composer just said "Ah, to Hell with it."
After a 4 year wait, I was a little let down. I didn't have my hopes up for this like I did for Thor (which did NOT disappoint), but I expected a little better than what we've been given.
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides gets 7 hard nipples out of 10. Good, but could have been better.
CBMTrolls