Remember the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies? Of course you do – they were massive hits the world over. Now here’s a tricky one: remember what actually happened in them? Well, there was a sea monster and some sword fights and a magic compass and a monkey and a hat and – ah, who cares, Johnny Depp wore eyeliner and acted drunk, what more do you want from a film?With all the boring, normal characters disposed of at the end of the last instalment – basically, everyone who isn’t Johnny Depp or Geoffrey Rush – Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is free to start again (or in Hollywood jargon, “re-boot the franchise”) with a story that actually makes some kind of sense. It’s not a brilliant or complex story, mind you, but just having a beginning, middle and end is a massive step up over the dog’s breakfast that was most of the first three films.
When the location of the not-so-mythical Fountain of Youth surfaces in Spanish hands, the British aren’t just going to sit idly by. Fortunately for them, Captain Jack Sparrow (Depp) is currently in London busting old comrades out of prison. Not that they want him to lead the mission – they’ve hired the now one-legged Barbossa (Rush) for that – but they hear he’s planning a trip of his own so presumably he knows where to go. Funny thing is, he isn’t actually planning an expedition to anywhere, as he doesn’t even have a ship. So who’s hiring people in his name?
The rest of the film is taken up in a race to find the Fountain of Youth and the means by which eternal life can be gained. Here’s a clue: it involves a mermaid’s tear, and as mermaids are brutal killers who drag men to their deaths (and in one case are played by Australia’s own Gemma Ward), making one cry isn’t as easy as you might think.
The plot is pretty thin, but it at least makes moderate sense (or at least it’s not blatantly stupid) and leaves plenty of room for action set-pieces. The Pirate films have always managed to be handy with a swordfight, and there are a couple of solid swashbucking scenes here that tick all the right boxes - even managing to include that old classic, swinging from a chandelier. As the story progresses the action tapers off a little, but by that stage the characters are interesting enough to keep things moving along nicely.
Both Depp and Rush know what’s required of them and deliver in spades. Depp does lack a little of the spark he had in the earlier films, but he’s the lead here and he has to put up with the occasional lump of exposition to push things ahead before he can go back to being charmingly offbeat. For a character that’s still really a supporting character, it’s amazing how well they’ve kept his essence while broadening him into someone you can actually build a story around.
The two main additions to the cast this time out are Penelope Cruz as Angelica and Ian McShane as Blackbeard. They both strike the right campy note for pirates without really making that much of an impact, which in McShane’s case is a bit of a surprise but to be fair his character lacks any real meat for him to sink his teeth into. Cruz is a little more fun as Sparrow’s quasi love-interest, but she gets less to do as the story moves on.
There’s also a small nod towards “serious” romance in a relationship that develops between a missionary (Sam Claflin) and a mermaid (Astrid Berges-Frisbey). It’s hardly compelling stuff, but the fact that it’s there at all is both a pleasant surprise and a useful counter-balance to all the hamming it up and scenery-chewing everyone else is doing.
You’ve got to respect a film that keeps its focus firmly on getting the job done. Sure, it could have done it with more flair – there’s no moment here that equals the skeleton sailors walking across the sea bed in the first film – but in the end there’s not a lot here to argue with either. It may not leave you wanting more of the pirate’s life, but when you’ve got cameos from Dame Judi Dench and Keith Richards you must be doing something right.
