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John
Christopher Depp II, my adoration for you has endured these many years.
I suffered through your bratty reluctant heartthrob stage during your
first splash of fame on the eighties’ TV show, 21 Jump Street. You
thankfully grew out of that tacky phase to become the muse and avatar of
your BFF Tim Burton in such opuses (- opii?) as Edward
Scissorhands {1990}, Ed Wood {1994}, Sleepy Hollow {1999},
and Sweeney Todd {2007}, and here you are all grown up and
generally considered one the best regarded -- and coolest -- actor in
Hollywood. Dear Johnny, my adulation is an abiding thing, but even I
don’t like to be taken for granted. Not that I question your talent or
motivation, but even I have to shake my head after viewing Pirates of
the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides over what’s left for you to do with
your most famous creation, Captain Jack Sparrow.
Plumbing the tales of the high seas for yet another seafaring chestnut;
this time we are in search of not a mystical ship or Davy Jones’ Locker,
but that most mythic of all hunted treasures, the Fountain of Youth. We
begin our tale in Old Blighty, where even the palaces and might of King
George can’t keep Captain Jack for long once he’s on a trail. All the
old sovereign did was attempt to make an honest man of our dreadlocked
scoundrel by recruiting him as a legal and lawful privateer. The catch
is, Jack would serve under the command of his eternal rival, a newly
peg-legged Captain Barbossa. This arrangement just won’t do and Jack
decides to set out for the Fountain himself after discovering an
imposter is already amassing a crew for the very same mission. The
copycat’s moves are just a bit too close for comfort and the fraudulent
Jack is actually an old paramour from long ago, who may or may not be
seeking revenge for the loss of her innocence at the pirate’s grubby
hands. Angelica seems to have a bit of a Daddy fixation since her
immediate next-of-kin turns out to be the most feared pirate of all,
Blackbeard. Mr. Beard is in desperate need of the Fountain of Youth as
a prophecy has told him his days are numbered. So shanghaied onto
Blackbeard’s ship, Jack is in search of the Fountain, Barbossa is after
it for the Crown of England, and for more fun, the Spaniards are also
trailing a lead on it. Who will get there first?
Does
it matter? With a few exceptions, the Pirates of the Caribbean series
has become about watching Johnny Depp totter around in a permanent state
of inebriation, blurting out the occasional funny quip and committing
the odd bit of swashbuckling and slapstick now and again. Unfortunately
for this chapter, the funny quips are way too occasional and there’s not
enough swashbuckling or slapstick to keep up any momentum. The series
has simply lost its steam.
There is the welcome addition of the
brilliant Ian McShane, giving the film a precious gasp of life as a
chilling Blackbeard. All-too-few moments of Depp and Geoffrey Rush as
best frenemies, Sparrow and Barbossa bring much needed spark to the
slower moments, but in all there’s nothing particularly memorable about
On Stranger Tides. I will totally concede that this film is practically
Citizen Kane compared to the eye-bleedingly unwatchable last
installment, 2007’s At World’s End (Oh, poor Chow!), but it is
wrong for me to want greatness?
There are a couple of interesting ideas
that play more like proposals for the next thrill ride at the Disney
parks; like Sparrow and Barbossa’s balancing act on Ponce De Leon’s
teetering ghost ship. I can picture Captain Jack’s Wild Ride, a motion
simulator imitating Sparrow’s crazy chase through generic London
streets. I enjoyed the film’s mermaids; gorgeous sylphs, part-siren,
part-piranha that make a meal of the sailors they seduce. In case the
audience wasn’t sure whether they were looking at a moment of action,
the blaring Hans Zimmer score was cranked up to eleven every time a
character walked along at a clip faster than a saunter. A romance
between a captured missionary with a sinful six-pack and a stolen
mermaid is meant to substitute for the lack of Orlando Bloom and Keira
Knightley as the star-crossed lovers/subplot from the last three films.
While the pair are lovely to look at, it’s hard to believe that a
couple could be written any paler than Bloom and Knightley in the last
chapter, but here we have it.
Everything is thinner and less involving
in On Stranger Tides, and but for the Herculean strength of Depp’s charm
and the presence of Rush and McShane, the film would hardly be worth
watching at all. I don’t know how many films Penelope Cruz has made
over the past decade-plus that featured her in English-speaking roles,
but egads, woman, as fellow Latinoid, I still can’t understand half the
things you say. She’s neither here nor there as Sparrow’s jilted love
and good or ill; it looks like she’s going to be around for the
inevitable sequel(s). I’d rather have Dame Judi Dench, here in a
saucy cameo that speaks for all womankind, as the femme fatale.
This
chapter is the first one presented in 3D, though I can’t see why. There
are literally about three ‘comin’ at ya’ moments that are clearly meant
as a sop to the audience who actually expect more for their
higher-priced 3D ticket, but it’s not worth it and feels like the cheap
gimmick it is. It almost adds insult to injury when one considers how
hollow the entire enterprise is.
This is what I meant by taking my
adoration for granted, Mr. Depp. I’m gonna need a better script next
time, Johnny, otherwise we’re gonna have to think about counseling.
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
May 20th,
2011
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