A Pirates life for me.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.


So I wasn’t a super fan of the Pirates movies. I like Barbosa and Jack, and I LOVED Davy Jones – part 2 is my fave because of him. Keira and Orlando – I could have done without. Needless side story that wasn’t interesting. In those first 3 movies Jack Sparrow wasn’t really the main guy. There was Jack, Barbosa, Davy, Calypso, Chow Yun Fat, Orlando, Keira, and a whole load of other pirate guys that didn’t do anything. With all these characters and very little characterization, the pirate movies in general were only ok – mostly due to the monsters and visuals – which are amazing I must say.


This movie eliminates all that and now we have Penelope Cruz, Barbosa, Blackbeard (played by Ian Mcshane who I loved in Dead Wood) and Jack – who is finally the star of the movie. So I am back on board with this one!


The story was very easy to follow and made sense. I liked the Raiders of the Lost Ark feel to it also – with several factions hunting for the Fountain of Youth.


I also, like my colleague Stephenstein, liked Jack Sparrow A LOT in this one. He was definitely more heroic (comes with being the star I guess) and thought he was just as funny as the other movies.


Plus this movie also had some really cool ideas. How they acquire the Mermaid’s tear for one, also how every faction had their own reasons for finding the fountain. And I loved the relationships – Jack and Penelope, Penelope and Blackbeard etc. And for the cheap love story side plot – it was handled better than I thought it would be.


This one does suffer from lack of cool monsters, the Kraken, Davy Jones etc, but Blackbeard’s such an interesting character that you don’t think about it too much.


Overall, this has to be the best of the series for me, and I really hope they continue on with this – stay to the end for some extra footage!


4.5/5


J-Man.